03.16.24- U.S. Uranium Producers Reviving Abandoned Mines Amid Supply Squeeze
Alex Kimani

As the AI craze continues to hog the limelight, another asset class has been enjoying a similar boom, albeit under the radar. Over the past couple of years, uranium and shares in companies that mine it have gone on a tear amid a spike in demand and looming shortages. After being ostracized for decades as the black sheep of the alternative energy industry, nuclear energy is back in fashion as the global energy and climate crisis are forcing policymakers to return to the drawing board.Last year’s COP28 held in the United Arab Emirates made history as the first ever climate summit to back nuclear energy among low-emissions technologies. Read More

03.15.24- Elon Musk: AI will run out of electricity and transformers in 2025
Loz Blain

"I've never seen any technology advance faster than this." The chip shortage may be behind us, but AI and EVs are expanding at such a rapacious rate that the world will face supply crunches in electricity and transformers next year, says Elon Musk.

In a dial-in Q&A to close the Bosch Connected World conference, the recent Nobel Peace Prize nominee spoke about self-driving cars and humanoid robots, and hinted at what's coming next from Tesla in electric vehicles – but he clearly wanted to send the clearest possible signal to industry as well: Get going on clean energy generation, and make as many electrical transformers as you can. Read More

03.14.24- Can Nuclear Power “Decarbonize” the Oil and Gas Industry?
Felicity Bradstock

Governments and private companies worldwide have been exploring the idea of reducing emissions from oil operations by using nuclear energy. There is increasing pressure for oil and gas firms to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to support a global green transition and reduce the effects of climate change on the environment, yet this can be extremely difficult to achieve. Much of the focus has been on retroactive carbon-capture operations, using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Many environmentalists believe that the retroactive approach does not make a meaningful change and that fossil fuel companies must reduce their production rates, as well as decarbonise operations at the source. In response, companies worldwide are exploring the potential for nuclear energy to power operations to reduce the emissions created during production and processing activities. Read More

03.13.24- IEA, OPEC Divergence on Oil Demand Becomes Too Big To Ignore
Irina Slav

Ever since the International Energy Agency switched from a pure-play information provider to an advocate of the energy transition, its forecasts about oil demand have shifted to increasingly reflect this advocacy.

This has led to a growing divergence between the IEA's and OPEC's outlooks on the future of the commodity, increasing the risk of confusion among analysts and investors. The question "Who's right?" has become a legitimate one. Read More

03.12.24- Giant 'sand battery' holds
a week's heat for a whole town

Michael Irving

A new industrial-scale 'sand battery' has been announced for Finland, which packs 1 MW of power and a capacity of up to 100 MWh of thermal energy for use during those cold polar winters. The new battery will be about 10 times bigger than a pilot plantthat’s been running since 2022.

The sand battery, developed by Polar Night Energy, is a clever concept. Basically, it’s a big steel silo of sand (or a similar solid material) that’s warmed up through a heat exchanger buried in the center, using excess electricity from the grid – say, that generated during a spike from renewable sources, when it’s cheap. Read More

03.11.24- New Lithium Ion Conductor Redefines Solid-State Battery Design
Brian Westenhaus

University of Liverpool researchers have discovered a solid electrolyte material that rapidly conducts lithium ions. The discovery of new Li ion conductor unlocks a new direction for sustainable batteries. The discovery is discussed in a paper published in the journal Science. Read More

03.09.24- China’s Rare Earth
Export Ban Is Backfiring

Metal Miner Team

The Rare Earths MMI (Monthly Metals Index) experienced a pretty significant drop month-on-month, falling 24.73%. Save for cerium oxide, all components of the index either fell or moved sideways. Weaker than anticipated downstream demand ended up hitting certain metals related to rare earth magnets particularly hard, causing a plummet in the index. Read More

03.08.24- Texas Wildfires Underscore Increasing Risk for Utilities
Leonard Hyman and William Tilles

Warren Buffett fretted, in his annual report, that wildfires threatened his electric utility investments. He specifically cited the stock price carnage experienced by two US utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric and Hawaiian Electric, as the basis for his concern. Barely a week later,  the Smokehouse fire in the Texas Panhandle has burned over a million acres of brush and timber in the heart of cattle country. This time it is Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy and its utility subsidiary, Southwestern Public Service that is at risk. The company filed an 8-k with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on February 29 stating that a lawsuit had been filed in Texas blaming the utility's inadequate pole maintenance practices as being the cause of the wildfires. Shares of Xcel Energy have declined about 20% in response thus far. Read More

03.07.24- Cutting-Edge AI Identifies New Catalysts for Hydrogen Electrolysis
Brian Westenhaus

A National Institute for Materials Science, Japan research team has developed an AI technique capable of expediting the identification of materials with desirable characteristics. Using this technique, the team was able to discover high-performance water electrolyzer electrode materials free of platinum-group elements – substances previously thought to be indispensable in water electrolysis. These materials may be used to reduce the cost of large-scale production of green hydrogen – a next-generation energy source.  Read More

03.06.24- MIT’s Superconducting Magnets Mark Major Fusion Milestone
Brian Westenhaus

An MIT comprehensive study of high-temperature superconducting magnets confirms they meet requirements for an economic, compact fusion power plant.

A detailed report by researchers at PSFC and MIT spinout company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), published in a collection of six peer-reviewed papers in a special edition of the March issue of IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. Read More

03.05.24- Startups and Big Oil Use Fracking Tech To Unlock Geothermal Energy
Tsvetana Paraskova

Big Oil is using its deep pockets and expertise in well geology to back and partner with energy startups that are looking to unlock renewable energy from beneath the earth’s surface.

Geothermal energy, which has been around for decades, has received new momentum with the net-zero targets of many economies, including the United States. Read More

03.04.24- Solar Stocks Rally on Optimistic Guidance
Alex Kimani

The solar sector has snapped from a months-long selloff after the largest U.S. solar module manufacturer, First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR), beat Wall Street’s earnings estimate and also issued robust 2024 guidance. First Solar reported Q4 2023 GAAP EPS of $3.25, $0.13 above the Wall Street consensus while revenue of $1.16B was good for a healthy 16.0% Y/Y growth despite missing the consensus by $160M. Fourth-quarter earnings swung to a profit of $349M from a loss of $7.5M in the year-earlier quarter. First Solar finished the year with net bookings of 28.3 GW at a base ASP of 31.8 c/w and net cash balance of $1.6 billion. Read More

03.02.24- Seawater plant will capture 10 tons of CO2 and make 300 kg of H2 per day
Paul McClure

After successful pilot programs, UCLA has partnered with Singapore’s national water agency and others to build the world’s largest ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plant capable of removing 3,650 metric tons (8,046,873 lb) of the greenhouse gas per year while producing 105 metric tons (231,000 lb) of carbon-negative hydrogen.

According to the World Bank, average global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2020 were 4.3 metric tons (9,500 lb) per capita. With this figure in mind, researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have been working to trap atmospheric CO2 from the oceans in an effort to reduce it. Read More

03.01.24- Elon Musk: AI will run out of electricity and transformers in 2025
Loz Blain

"I've never seen any technology advance faster than this." The chip shortage may be behind us, but AI and EVs are expanding at such a rapacious rate that the world will face supply crunches in electricity and transformers next year, says Elon Musk.

In a dial-in Q&A to close the Bosch Connected World conference, the recent Nobel Peace Prize nominee spoke about self-driving cars and humanoid robots, and hinted at what's coming next from Tesla in electric vehicles – but he clearly wanted to send the clearest possible signal to industry as well: Get going on clean energy generation, and make as many electrical transformers as you can. Read More

02.29.24- This Might Be The Fastest Way to Double U.S. Grid Capacity
Alex Kimani

The Biden administration has set an ambitious target to generate 80% of the United States’ electricity from renewables by 2030 and 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035. However, the country’s aging infrastructure is already struggling to keep pace with the rapid growth of renewable energy, with experts saying a massive grid overhaul is required to make intermittent generation possible. Read More

02.28.24- Europe Set for 50 TWh Solar Power Boom in 2024
Rystad Energy

Despite a record-breaking 60 gigawatts direct current (GWDC) of solar PV capacity expansion in 2023, solar power generation in Europe saw a modest increase of about 20%. This year, however, will be another story. Read More

02.27.24- Could Solar Power Become America’s Leading Electricity Source?
Felicity Bradstock

Solar energy operations have been flourishing in recent years, following decades of sustained investment and recent innovations in solar panel technology. There has been a solar manufacturing boom, which is expected to continue at a faster pace. Countries worldwide are investing heavily in increasing their solar energy capacity in support of a green transition, with China and the U.S. leading the way. Read More

02.26.24- Bumpy solar cells could harvest up to 66% more energy
Michael Irving

A new solar cell design consisting of "hemispheres" on the surface, like braille dots, could improve efficiency

Solar cell efficiency may get a bump from bumps. New research suggests that building tiny domes into the surface of organic solar cells could boost their efficiency by up to two-thirds, while capturing light from a wider angle. Read More

02.24.24- EVs Are a Bust
Jeffrey Tucker

We are living through one of history’s longest and most excruciating versions of “We told you so.”

When in March 2020, the world’s governments decided to “shut down” the world’s economies and throttle any and all social activity, and deny kids schooling plus cancel worship services and holidays, there was no end to the warnings of the terrible collateral damage, even if most of them were censored. Read More

02.23.24- Trillions of tons of buried hydrogen: Clean energy gold rush begins
Loz Blain

There's enough natural hydrogen trapped underground to meet all projected demands for hundreds of years. An unpublished report by the US Geological Survey identifies it as a new primary resource, and fires the starter pistol on a new gold rush. Read More

02.22.24- Nuclear SMR welding breakthrough:
A year's work now takes a day

David Szondy

Small Modular Reactor (SMR) construction shifts into high gear, as UK company Sheffield Forgemasters welds a full-size nuclear reactor vessel in under 24 hours instead of the usual 12 months. The rollout of this game-changing tech could be massive.

Modular reactors have the potential to revolutionize the nuclear power industry by turning nuclear generating plants from major civil engineering projects to factory-produced commodities. Instead of being essentially one-offs, modular reactors have a standardized design, can be mass produced, installed in any number required to serve local needs, and don't require the incredibly expensive buildings conventional reactors depend upon.  Read More

02.21.24- World On Threshold Of Natural Hydrogen "Gold Rush," Geologists Say
Tyler Durden

Speaking this weekend at a Denver meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, geologists heralded a coming, game-changing surge in mankind's harvesting of a resource long thought impractical to collect: naturally-occurring or "geologic hydrogen." 

The scientists provided a first look at the findings of an as-yet-unpublished study performed by the US Geological Survey (USGS). The key takeaway: naturally-occurring hydrogen is far more abundant near the Earth's surface than previously known. Researchers say the planet holds upwards of 5 trillion tons of hydrogen, trapped in underground pockets. Read More

02.20.24- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Congress Is Broken
Douglas Andrews

The recent retirement announcements of two talented and patriotic Republican congressmen bodes ill for our nation.

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

So said Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981, in his first inaugural address. We were reminded of these words last Wednesday when Tennessee Republican Congressman Mark Green said, “I have come to realize our fight is not here within Washington, our fight is with Washington” (emphasis added). Read More

02.19.24- 10 Reasons Why The World Can't Run Without Fossil Fuels
Gail Tverberg

  • Banks, governments, and businesses would face failure due to the essential role of fossil fuels in the economy.

  • Critical infrastructure like electricity, internet, and trade systems would collapse without fossil fuel support.

  • Agriculture and home heating would become inefficient and inaccessible to many, leading to widespread social upheaval. Read More

02.17.24- Solar Panel Waste is Becoming
a Big Problem

Jennifer Kary

Numerous factors continue to pull at the Renewables MMI (Monthly Metals Index) as it moves through Q1. This past month, the index largely moved sideways, only exhibiting a slight upward movement of 1.66%. Meanwhile, renewable energy news indicated that metals like cobalt and silicon could remain in oversupply for some time. Moreover, expanding mining operations in DRC continue to add cobalt to the already-abundant global stockpile. With steel prices flattening, the index continues to move steadily sideways. Read More

02.16.24- Advanced geothermal drilling is 70% faster and 50% cheaper than 2022
Michael Franco

Geothermal development company Fervo Energy has announced impressive strides being made at its Cape Station facility in southern Utah. The results could lead to a quicker and more widespread uptake of this super-clean energy production process.Read More

02.15.24- Wyoming Rare Earth Discovery Could Shake Up Global Markets
Jennifer Kary

Month-on-month, rare earths prices exhibited sharp downward movement. While weaker downstream demand could potentially prove one culprit in the dropping prices, another potential factor is an increase in global rare earth production outside of China. If true, China could find itself bumped down the totem pole in terms of rare earth magnets dominance. Meanwhile, China’s economy continues to waver due to the weakened property sector, which could also potentially impact prices. For now, China continues to hold its spot as the top global rare earths producer. Read More

02.14.24- Why Are China’s Solar Panels
So Cheap?

Mike Shedlock

The US wants to break into the solar panel business. Doing so, if its possible at all, means costs of the solar panels and electricity will surge...

China’s Grip on Solar

The Wall Street Journal asks Can the U.S. Break China’s Grip on Solar? Read More

02.13.24- Historic fusion ignition in a lab experiment confirmed
David Szondy

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has published an extensive paper confirming the validity of its 2022 fusion experiment where multiple lasers focused on a sphere of deuterium and tritium to achieve the first fusion ignition in a laboratory.

Creating nuclear fusion is relatively easy to produce. All you need are the conditions that place hydrogen isotope ions under the right conditions of heat and pressure to cause them to fuse into helium. In fact, it's so easy that it was the centerpiece of a General Electric exhibit that ran for 10 hours a day at the 1964 World's Fair. Read More

02.12.24- Fusion Breakthrough Could Spark AI and Quantum Computing Boom
Tyler Durden

A recent physics breakthrough that could serve as a proof-of-concept for the development of nuclear fusion reactors capable of producing near-unlimited energy has finally passed its official peer-review successfully.  On December 5th, 2022 a team of researchers at the United States National Ignition Facilityin California recorded data indicating that it had achieved a nuclear fusion reaction that created more energy than it took to produce. The reported results were the first of their kind.Read More

02.10.24- Nuclear Energy's Role
in a Sustainable Future

Tommy Tuberville

It’s the coldest time of the year and the demand for energy is significantly higher as people try to warm their homes. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in Alabama seven out of ten homes rely on electric heating during the winter months. Increasing demand is placing a strain on our power grid, and the Biden administration has no solution to the problem. Read More

02.09.24- The Delusions Of Davos And Dubai, Part Three: Alternatives To Wind & Solar Energy
Edward Ring

Wind and solar energy cannot lift humanity into prosperity.

But as an impressive fleet of private jets has recently migrated from the COP 28 Summit in Dubai to the World Economic Forum in Davos, carrying the hoi polloi of the world from one elitist summit to another, this delusion was the dominant sentiment. Read More

02.08.24- Is the Push for Electric Vehicles Outpacing Market Readiness?
Jennifer Kary

All components of the Automotive MMI moved sideways or down month-on-month. Moreover, January saw prices flatten out across the steel market, causing hot-dipped galvanized steel prices to trend close to support zones. Meanwhile, China’s wavering economy continues to prove a concern for global markets because the country is such a large steel demand driver. Many fear that if HDG demand were to drop too much within China, it could impact global demand overall. Therefore, HDG buyers for vehicle manufacturers should to keep a close eye on China’s economy for the foreseeable future. Read More

02.07.24- Self-extinguishing lithium battery puts out its own fires
Loz Blain

High-density lithium batteries hold vast amounts of energy – and when they drop their guts, they can do so in absolutely spectacular destructive fashion. So researchers have built fire extinguishing capabilities right into the cells themselves. Read More

 

02.06.24- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Brace for Impact
James Howard Kunstler

“It’s not enough to say it’s nuts, you have to explain why it’s so nuts.” – Terrance McKenna

“Joe Biden’s” victory dance in South Carolina — down on the ol’ Democratic Party Plantation, where they grows votes — didn’t last long. By Sunday, a rogue satellite named Tucker Carlson was spotted orbiting over Russia, Russia, Russia, a country you have to say three times so that people get how serious it is. Carlson threatens to actually sit down in the same room with Putin, Putin, Putin — the antithesis of “Joe Biden,” since Putin actually operates as head-of-state — and convey Mr. P’s thoughts and opinions to the citizens of America via the rascally social media platform called “X.” Read More

02.05.24- Nanosheet Breakthrough to Boost Sustainable Hydrogen Production
Brian Westenhaus

City University of Hong Kong scientists have recently developed a novel strategy to engineer stable and efficient ultrathin nanosheet catalysts by forming Turing structures with multiple nanotwin crystals. This innovative discovery paves the way for enhanced catalyst performance for green hydrogen production. The report about the research has been published in Nature Communications. Read More

02.03.04- Global Plant Growth Accelerates Thanks to Higher Carbon Dioxide Levels, New Study Finds
Chris Morrison

The rate of global greening caused by recent increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide has accelerated during the last two decades, according to important new findings recently published by a group of Chinese scientists. About 55% of global land mass revealed an “accelerated rate” of vegetation growth, compared with only 7.3% showing increased decline or ‘browning’. Read More

02.02.24- Uranium Prices Soar As World Turns
to Nuclear Power

Haley Zaremba

As the need for abundant and expedient carbon-free energy intensifies and solar and wind power deployment hit some major speedbumps, more and more industry experts are calling for a resurgence of nuclear energy. While nuclear power has been out of vogue for decades now, proponents argue that its myriad values can no longer be ignored. Read More

02.01.24- Home Battery Storage Explained
Jason Svarc

Batteries for solar energy storage are evolving rapidly and becoming mainstream as the transition to renewable energy accelerates. Until recently, batteries were mainly used for off-grid solar systems. However, the giant leap forward in lithium battery technology has seen immense interest in people wanting to store excess solar energy, increase self-consumption and become more energy-independent. Additionally, with frequent extreme weather events causing grid-wide blackouts, households and businesses are looking for ways to ensure a reliable electricity supply during prolonged disruptions. Read More

02.31.24- Battery-free sensor harnesses the power of speech
Paul McClure

Researchers have developed a battery-free sensor that reacts to sound waves, such as particular spoken words, producing enough vibrational energy to power an electronic device. The novel sensor would not only reduce battery waste but could also power medical devices like cochlear implants or monitor buildings for faults. Read More

01.30.24- Navigating the Land Crunch in Renewable Energy Expansion
Haley Zaremgba

Building out solar and wind power generation capacity at the scale and pace needed to meet global climate pledges will require some serious problem-solving. There are a handful of key challenges facing renewable scaling, the three most prominent of which are aging and unsuitable power grids, arduous and lengthy permitting processes, and securing enough land to build utility-scale solar and wind farms. Read More

01.29.24- Joe Biden cuts off LNG exports in latest act of economic sabotage against Texas and Western European countries
Mike Adams

This is a truly incredible development. Joe Biden has just halted all new LNG exports from the United States and this comes after the US Navy destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines feeding energy to Europe. In addition, Qatar has just announced a halting of LNG exports due to the risk of ships being damaged in the conflict between the Yemen rebels and the US Navy in the Red Sea. Read More

01.27.24- New Law Could Put Geothermal On Equal Footing With Oil And Gas
Alex Kimani

Nearly two decades ago, President George W.Bush’s administration passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that ‘‘…provides categorical exclusions from National Environmental Policy Act reviews for permitting for drilling in public lands where drilling has occurred within the last five years,  or where an approved environmental evaluation was completed within the last five years”.Interestingly, this special privilege only applies to oil and gas fields but not to geothermal energy, despite the latter being a much cleaner energy source.Read More

01.26.24- Why Lithium Prices Crashed by 80%
Tsvetana Paraskova

Slowing growth in electric vehicle sales, including in the top EV market, China, and a market oversupply in battery metals sent lithium prices crashing by 80% in the past year, prompting lithium miners to pause and scale back expansion projects.   

China's EV sales continued to grow last year but fell short of expectations. On the other hand, raw material providers, which had rushed to mine lithium in the past two years to meet growing demand, have outproduced the current demand. As a result, lithium prices crashed last year by over 80% to the lowest level since 2020, at $13,200 per ton, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence says, as carried by the Financial Times. Read More

01.25.24- Self-powered emergency seawall could generate power during tsunamis
Loz Blain

Self-deploying sea barriers offer coastal towns some protection from the destructive forces of tsunamis – but one problem can arise when power goes out in a disaster scenario. Hence this Japanese proposal for a wall that generates its own power.

There are only around two tsunamis a year worldwide that cause death or damage, according to the US Tsunami Warning System. Larger ones capable of causing death or damage more than 1,000 km (620 miles) from their point of origin happen at a rate around two per decade. Read More

01.24.24- Floating Solar Farms: Southeast Asia's Answer to Land Scarcity
Ryan Opsal

Solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity additions are poised to be a central pillar of Southeast Asia’s energy future, with floating installations primed to play a critical role. Mirroring the broader Asian region’s dominance of the global floating PV (FPV) market, Rystad Energy research shows that Southeast Asia will account for 10% of the region’s total solar capacity by 2030, encompassing ground-mounted, rooftop and FPV installations. Countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand are well-positioned to be at the forefront of this growing trend, using FPV to increase clean energy generation capacity. Read More

01.23.24- "Power plant" generates electricity via the wind and rain on its leaves
Ben Coxworth

The artificial "power plant," with nonfunctional green leaves and beige leaves that are actually energy collectors – in real-world use, all of the leaves could be colored green

While renewable energy sources certainly are more eco-friendly than fossil fuels, most of them only produce electricity in one way, such as using sunlight … which isn't always available. A new system, that has been built into an artificial plant, uses both wind and rain. Read More

01.22.24- Canada Dominates Global Uranium Production
Tyler Durden

Uranium production in Cigar Lake, Canada is the highest-grade in the world.

Since 2014, the site has mined 105 million pounds of the radioactive metal, which is naturally occurring on Earth. 

It is the largest uranium mine on the planet. Read More

01.20.24- Protecting Coasts and Powering Homes: The Tidal Range Revolution
Brian Westenhaus

Lancaster University researchers David Vandercruyssen, Simon Baker, David Howard and George Aggidis from the School of Engineering have said that tidal range schemes are vital to protect habitats, housing and businesses from a rising sea level estimated to be over one meter within 80 years.

The research report published in Energy (an open access paper), follows on from earlier Lancaster University research into a combined tidal range electricity generation and cost model demonstrating the viability of tidal range energy in the UK. This showed how it is possible to maintain the full tidal range within existing dams or weirs. Read More

01.19.24- Space-Based Solar Farms Could Power the Planet from Orbit
Haley Zaremba

The variability of renewable energy is one of the key hurdles standing between us and a net-zero future. Unlike baseload fossil fuels, which can be easily manipulated to produce enough supply to meet demand at any given time, renewable energy sources like solar and wind power depend on uncontrollable elements like the weather and the time of day. Finding a way to better match renewable energy supply with demand will therefore be critical to meeting global decarbonization goals. Read More

01.18.24- New Methane Emission Laws Could Transform U.S. Energy Sector
Felicity Bradstock

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could introduce new emissions fees for the production of methane in oil and gas projects across the country if approved. This month, the EPA proposed a new rule to encourage clean energy deployment and decarbonisation, as well as to reduce methane emissions, aimed at some of the country’s biggest emitters. Some companies in the oil and gas industry continue to emit higher levels of greenhouse gases than permitted by Congress under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). If approved, this rule would charge companies that produce excess emissions. The EPA hopes that the rule will encourage companies to invest in carbon capture and storage technologies, as well as follow best practices to support decarbonisation and the curbing of methane emissions before it comes into place. Read More

How stupid is BC’s energy policy? We could be the Saudi Arabia of electricity for the price of one $16-billion Site C dam
Richard Mills

In British Columbia, the cost of building a Site C, a massive hydroelectric dam on the Peace River, is now estimated at CAD$16 billion, following numerous cost overruns.

BC taxpayers will also cough up $5.3 billion worth of tax breaks for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and pipeline called LNG Canada — three more LNG projects are proposed, all connected by pipelines, to ship natural gas fracked from BC gas fields to customers in Asia. Read More

01.16.24- "Dirt-powered fuel cell" draws near-limitless energy from soil
Loz Blain

A Northwestern University team has demonstrated a remarkable new way to generate electricity, with a paperback-sized device that nestles in soil and harvests power created as microbes break down dirt – for as long as there's carbon in the soil. 

Microbial fuel cells, as they're called, have been around for more than 100 years. They work a little like a battery, with an anode, cathode and electrolyte – but rather than drawing electricity from chemical sources, they work with bacteria that naturally donate electrons to nearby conductors as they chow down on soil. Read More

01.15.24- Copper's Critical Role
in Green Energy Transition

Felicity Bradstock

In the Autumn of 2023, the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) forecast that the copper market was likely to experience a significant surplus of the metal in 2024 after several companies worldwide ramped up their operations in response to the growing global demand. However, by the end of the year, updated forecasts suggested that copper prices would skyrocket in 2024, as the world faces deficits of the critical metal driven by more ambitious climate pledges from various countries around the globe. So, what can we expect for copper in the coming year? Read More

01.13.24- Geopolitical Risks Push Oil Prices Higher
Michael Kern

Oil prices are being pushed higher by renewed geopolitical risk after the UK and the U.S. launched an attack on Houthi positions in Yemen. Brent temporarily climbed above $80 before falling back slightly. Read More

01.12.24- Uranium's "Third Bull Market"
Set to Shine in 2024

Tyler Durden

So far this week, spot prices for yellowcake - uranium concentrate used in nuclear power generation - reached a new 16-year high, climbing to $92.45 per pound. Reflecting on our December 2020 note to readers in "Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze," yellowcake prices have risen 217%. 

The uranium market is only getting hotter, and continued tightness could push prices over $100, analysts from Bank of America and Berenberg Bank wrote in two separate notes. Read More

01.11.24- Scientists Present New Solid State Lithium Battery That Lasts 6000 Cycles
Brian Westenhaus

Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences researchers have developed a new lithium metal battery that can be charged and discharged at least 6,000 times. That’s more than any other pouch battery cell – and can be recharged in a matter of minutes. The cycle count equals more than 16 years of daily charge /discharge cycles. Read More

01.10.24- This Is What They Don’t Want You to Know About the Climate Agenda
Dr Willie Soon

View Video

01.09.24- Big Oil’s Ambitious Decarbonization Strategies Have Gone Bust
Alex Kimani

Back in February 2020,British oil and gas multinational BP Inc. (NYSE:BP) announced an ambitious goal to become net-zero by 2050 through, among other things, aggressively cutting oil and gas production and also undertaking one of the industry’s most expansive renewable electricity build-outs. 

In April of the same year, deep in the throes of the oil price crash, BP’s Dutch peer Shell Plc (NYSE:SHEL) warned that global oil demand had been permanently destroyed and effected its biggest dividend cut since the Second World War. Read More

01.08.24- Germany Leads the Way in Solar Energy Across Europe
Tyler Durden

According to assessments by the International Renewable Energy Agency in 2022, Germany had an installed photovoltaic capacity of around 67 gigawatts, making it the European country with the greatest solar energy potential.

As Statista's Anna Fleck details below, the capacity of the Federal Republic in that year was more than twice as high as Italy's, which ranked second with 25 gigawatts.  Read More

01.06.24- Home Battery Storage Explained
Clean Energy Reviews

Batteries for solar energy storage are evolving rapidly and becoming mainstream as the transition to renewable energy accelerates. Until recently, batteries were mainly used for off-grid solar systems. However, the giant leap forward in lithium battery technology has seen immense interest in people wanting to store excess solar energy, increase self-consumption and become more energy-independent. Additionally, with frequent extreme weather events causing grid-wide blackouts, households and businesses are looking for ways to ensure a reliable electricity supply during prolonged disruptions. Read More

01.05.24- Chinese Carmakers Launch Sodium-Ion Battery-Powered EVs
Tom Kool

Two Chinese state-owned carmakers have launched electric vehicles (EVs) powered by sodium-ion batteries, considered an alternative to the conventional  lithium-ion batteries used in most EVs, Caixin Global reports. 

Yiwei, a new EV subsidiary of JAC Group and backed by Volkswagen, debuted the first sodium-ion battery-powered electric car on Wednesday. 

Back in 2021, Volkswagen invested 1 billion euros in JAC Group for a 50% stake with the giant German automaker before full control of management of the EV joint venture with a 75% stake. Read More

01.04.24- Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
Irina Slav

In late 2021, President Biden ordered the release of 50 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down the price of gasoline. Then, in the spring of the next year, he ordered the release of another 130 million barrels.

Prices at the pump fell between $0.17 and $0.42 per gallon. With the massive withdrawals and previously scheduled mandatory sales, the SPR shed 270 million barrels and fell to the lowest in 40 years.Read More

01.03.24- 2023 May Have Been the U.S. Oil Industry’s Best Year Yet
Irina Slav

Last year, U.S. crude oil production broke another record. This in itself is not exactly news. The shale oil industry has been breaking records for breakfast for years. But that was before the pandemic.

After the pandemic, many pronounced the shale boom dead. Of course, those same people found out in 2023 that this wasn’t strictly true. Despite a continued focus on capital discipline and the flurry of cash they returned to shareholders, U.S. drillers managed to boost their overall output to over 13.2 million barrels daily in September. And they did it with fewer rigs, at that. And with zero—if not negative—support from the federal government. Read More

01.02.24- We’re on the Verge of a Reset of Expectations in the Oil Sector
David Messler

Despite a late Santa rally in the oilpatch this week, it's probably time to recognize that we are on the verge of a reset of expectations for the oil sector in the developing, likely 2024 price environment for WTI and Brent. We are about one inventory build away from a trip back into the $60's for WTI and the low $70's for Brent. Do we stay there for long? I doubt it, and will discuss why in this article, but it could happen. In this article I will discuss what I see as the most likely scenario for 2024. Read More

01.01.24- Next-Gen Solar Cells: Smaller, Cheaper, More Efficient
Brian Westenhaus

University of Ottawa engineers, together with national and international partners, have achieved a world first by manufacturing the first back-contact micrometric photovoltaic cells.

The cells, with a size twice the thickness of a strand of hair, have significant advantages over conventional solar technologies, reducing electrode-induced shadowing by 95% and potentially lowering energy production costs by up to three times. Read More

12.30.23- There's hope yet: Clean energy advances that inspired us in 2023
Loz Blain

The world needs gargantuan amounts of clean energy moving forward, making this an area of colossal and growing opportunity for disruptive innovations. Here are some of the fascinating energy ideas and technologies that made us most hopeful in 2023.

Let's start out with the problem. The world currently produces somewhere approaching 30 terawatt-hours of electricity per year – a total that's rising sharply as developing countries modernize, and as developed countries pour country-sized quantities of energy into making internet coins and training artificial intelligences, among many other things. Read More

12.29.23- The Energy Transition Is Not Just About EV Batteries
Tom Albanese

The world is becoming increasingly electric and connected, transitioning towards a future powered by batteries and running on electronics that will require an ever-growing supply of critical minerals and materials. From the Ford F-150 Lightning to the F-35 fighter jet, these minerals and materials already power our most advanced technologies and nearly every facet of our everyday lives. Read More

12.28.23- A New Solar Powered Desalinization Method Might Have Just Helped
Solve Water Scarcity

Julia Jacobo

The more efficient desalination process could ease dwindling water supplies

Scientists may have found a more efficient water to desalinate water using solar power, according to new research, offering a solution for global water scarcity through the use of renewable energy. Read More

12.27.23- Will The War On Coal Leave America
In The Dark?

Kevin Stocklin

As the Biden administration promises to eliminate coal power throughout the United States, energy experts are sounding the alarm about what will be left of U.S. energy infrastructure if these plans succeed.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said on Dec. 2 at the U.N. COP 28 global warming summit that the Biden administration “will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities.” Read More

12.26.23- The Green Mirage: Unmasking the Harsh Realities of Renewable Energy Investments
Leigh R. Goehring

In late 2021, we made a bold and deeply contrarian call: we predicted massive capital flows into renewable energy could potentially become history’s worst malinvestment ever. Our call looks correct three years later and the consequences have emerged with a vengeance. Read More

12.25.23- Schottky Junction Electrode Revolutionizes Seawater Electrolysis
Brian Westenhaus

Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology researchers have now designed an electrode with Schottky Junction formed at the interface of metallic Ni-W5N4 and semiconducting NiFeOOH. The design overcomes the often shown poor performance of electrochemical catalysts used in water due to low electrical conductance of (oxy)hydroxide species produced in situ.

Green hydrogen (or H2) produced from renewable energy resources is expected to be the fuel of a decarbonized future. Electrolysis or splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen with the help of an electrochemical cell is one of the most popular ways of producing green H2. Read More

12.23.23- Falling Nickel Prices Weigh Heavy on Stainless Steel Industry
Nichole Bastin

Nickel prices remained within a strong downtrend throughout November, hitting their lowest level since April 2021. While prices appeared to stabilize during the first half of December, the nickel market has overwhelmingly proven itself the worst-performing base metal with a roughly 45% year-to-date drop.

Overall, the Stainless Monthly Metals Index (MMI) remained bearish, with a 6.59% decline from November to December. Read More

12.22.23- Navigating the Uranium Surge: Explosive Growth Ahead?
Justin Huhn

Join us in this fascinating interview with Justin Huhn, Founder & Publisher at Uranium Insider, as we explore the uranium market's potential for explosive growth. With prices soaring over 50% this year, we delve into the factors driving this surge and the future prospects heading into 2024.

Hosted by Jimmy Connor, this session provides critical insights into the uranium sector, which is vital for investors interested in commodities and wealth-building. Read More

12.21.23- Electrified cloth
extracts uranium from seawater

David Szondy

A team of scientists from China's Northeast Normal University has developed an electrochemical method for extracting uranium from ordinary seawater that has the potential to supply humanity with an effectively unlimited energy source.

By current estimates, there are about 8 million tonnes of known reserves of uranium on land. That's enough to fuel the world's nuclear reactors for centuries based on current technology, but in the sea there is an estimated 4.5 billion tonnes in the form of dissolved uranyl ions. If we could extract this economically, it would vastly extend our energy future. Even better, as uranium is removed from seawater, more would leach in from the Earth's crust, providing our descendants with over a billion years worth of nuclear fuel at any scale. Read More

12.20.23- U.S. Nuclear Sector Set for
Major Transformation

Jack Spencer

The silver lining of this month’s United Nations COP28 global warming conference is the growing consensus that nuclear energy is critical to meeting national carbon dioxide reduction goals.

Denying the world access to clean, affordable fuels like gas, oil, and coal is a real problem. But recognizing that nuclear energy must play a pivotal role in our energy future is a major step forward—one that should enjoy widespread support, regardless of one’s views on CO2 reductions. Read More

12.19.23- Quantum batteries could charge by breaking our understanding of time
Michael Irving

Causality is key to our experience of reality: dropping a glass, for example, causes it to smash, so it can’t smash before it’s dropped. But in the quantum world those rules don’t necessarily apply, and scientists have now demonstrated how that weirdness can be harnessed to charge a quantum battery.

In a sense, you could say that quantum batteries are powered by paradoxes. On paper, they work by storing energy in the quantum states of atoms and molecules – but of course, as soon as the word “quantum” enters the conversation you know weird stuff is about to happen. In this case, a new study has found that quantum batteries could work by violating cause-and-effect as we know it. Read More

12.18.23- Solar Stocks Jump After Fed Keeps Interest Rates Flat
Alex Kimani

The clean energy sector has gone wild with solar stocks enjoying a massive rally after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced that it will keep short-term interest rates unchanged and forecast three cuts next year, a potentially very bullish outlook for 2024. Interest rates have increased sharply over the past few years, going from about half a percentage point during the pandemic to more than 4% recently thanks to the Fed’s tapering program. However, a less hawkish Fed has seen rates reverse. The 10-year treasury yield hit a 16-year high of 4.98% in October but has pulled back to 3.91% currently. Read More

12.16.23- White-hot thermal grid battery aims to decimate lithium on price
Loz Blain

As a grid-level energy storage solution, Fourth aims to compete with big lithium battery arrays in the short-duration 5-10 hour range – basically storing excess solar energy during the heat of the day for use in the evening and at night when generation drops off. But the company says it's also relevant up to the 100-hour stage, which would cover the "several days of bad weather and poor renewable generation" case. Read More

12.15.23- New Catalyst and Solar Process Produces Low Cost Hydrogen
Brian Westenhaus

A study developed jointly by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and the spin-off BeDimensional has identified a solution based on ruthenium particles and a solar-powered electrolytic system. Small ruthenium particles and a solar-powered system for water electrolysis can produce green hydrogen more efficiently and cheaply. Read More

12.14.23- Chinese Scientists Present Solar Powered Water Harvesting Technology
Brian Westenhaus

Researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China developed a promising new solar-powered atmospheric water harvesting technology that could help provide enough drinking water for people to survive in those difficult, dryland areas.

Their work was published in Applied Physics Reviews, an AIP Publishing journal. Read More

12.13.23- Another Major Milestone in the Race for Nuclear Fusion
Felicity Bradstock

In the latest step to advance nuclear fusion technology, the world’s biggest reactor has just opened for business in Japan. This follows a huge influx in investment from the private sector, as companies and academic institutions around the globe race to achieve commercial-scale nuclear fusion. Things are looking more optimistic following a breakthrough last year and another in the summer, after decades of failed attempts. The technology is also gaining government backing, with the U.S. announcing a global nuclear fusion strategy at the COP28 climate summit in the UAE this month. Read More

12.12.23- Have Reports of Oil’s Death Been Greatly Exaggerated?
Haley Zaremba

There is a great mismatch between dominant climate narratives and the reality of the global energy sector. While energy industry insiders and environmentalists alike claim that the energy industry is heavily investing in cleaner alternatives and that the death of fossil fuels is just around the corner, Big Oil’s ledgers tell a different story. “The death of the oil industry has been greatly overstated,” said Kevin Book, managing director at the consulting firm ClearView Energy. “The realities of demand and the limitations of alternatives haven't changed.” Read More

12.11.23- The Crippling Economic Costs of Green Energy Subsidies
Jonathan Lesser

The green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have been justified by the Biden Administration as a booster of U.S. economic growth and jobs.  But when the subsidies are tallied and the overall impacts evaluated, the IRA is a job and economic growth killer.  Read More

12.09.23- China’s Plan for Flooding the Market with Cobalt
Alex Kimani

Chinese mining companies have sharply increased their cobalt output in Congo as they seek to expand their market share, putting further pressure on a commodity whose price has badly tanked. Read More

12.08.23- MIT Scientists Develop New Process To Convert CO2 into Fuel
Brian Westenhaus

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate. Formate is a nonflammable liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity.

The describing paper has been published in the journal Cell Press Physical Sciences. Read More

12.07.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Diamond data storage breakthrough writes and rewrites down to single atom
Michael Irving

Diamond is a promising material for data storage, and now scientists have demonstrated a new way to cram even more data onto it, down to a single atom. The technique bypasses a physical limit by writing data to the same spots in different-colored light.

Diamond has great potential as a data storage medium – recent developments have produced 2-inch (5-cm) wafers of the stuff that can store the equivalent of a billion Blu-Ray discs. Intriguingly, it works not by writing data to the diamond itself but to tiny nitrogen defects in the material. These defects can absorb light, earning them the name “color centers.” Read More

12.06.23- United States And Allies To Triple Nuclear Energy Capacity By 2050
Alex Kimani

The United States and 21 other countries have pledged to triple their respective nuclear energy capacities by 2050, saying incorporating more nuclear power in their energy mix is critical for achieving their net zero goals in the coming decades. The United States, alongside Britain, France, Canada, Sweden, South Korea, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates have signed the declaration at the COP28 climate summit currently underway in Dubai. Read More

12.05.23- Let the Market, Not Government, Decide the Fate of EVs
Kenneth W. Costello

Advocates of various energy technologies have long argued that major barriers, either government or market-derived, stifle the development of their favored technology. They then infer that the current level of their preferred technology is suboptimal, necessitating some form of governmental intervention.

That seems to hold true for New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who wants state tax credits and mandates on the purchases of electric vehicles (EVs). On November 16, the Governor’s appointed Environmental Improvement Board adopted a stringent clean car rule that requires 82 percent of all new vehicles delivered to the state to be zero-emission by 2032. Read More

12.04.23- Could Coal Mines Become a Critical Part of the Renewable Energy Boom?
Felicity Bradstock

Just when we thought it was the end of the coal era, the discovery of rare earth mineral deposits could mean that coal mines still have a role to play in the future of the energy sector. There have been proposals for the transformation of coal mines into geothermal facilities and other renewable energy sites, but this discovery could give coal mines a new lease of life for the more conventional purpose of mining.  Read More

12.02.23- And Now, for Something Enirely Different: Private Jets Headed To Global Warming Conference "Literally Frozen On Runway" 
Tyler Durden

While world leaders spoke at a 'global warming' conference in Dubai, located in the heart of the Arabian Desert, discussing the usual: banning gas stoves, cow farts, and petrol-powered vehicles, a powerful snowstorm grounded all flights at Munich Airport in Germany. 

"Private jets in Munich on the way to Dubai global warming conference are literally frozen on the runway, which has turned into a glacier," said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist and former NOAA chief scientist. Read More

12.01.23- The First-Ever Enhanced Geothermal Plant in the United States
Alex Kimani

U.S. tech giant Google and geothermal startup Fervo Energy have launched the U.S.' first-ever enhanced geothermal plant that will produce 100% carbon-free electricity round the clock. Dubbed Project Red, the 3.5-megawatt plant is now supplying power directly to the Las Vegas–based utility NV Energy with enough electricity to power roughly 2,600 U.S. homes. Read More

11.30.23- Hydrogen Fuel Cell Aircraft Startup Secures Funding
City A.M

Aircraft developer Zeroavia has secured the backing of the UK infrastructure bank in its latest fundraising round, as it looks to build hydrogen-electric engines for low-carbon flying.

The firm, which has bases in London, Kemble and California, said it had raised a total of $116m (£91.9m) in Series C funding from a number of investors, including £32m from the UK’s state-owned infrastructure investment bank. Read More

11.29.23- The Recipe for $150 Oil
James Rickards

How do the wars in Ukraine and Gaza impact global economic growth and the U.S. economy in particular?

Both wars are ongoing and cataclysmic impacts may yet be felt. Here’s where events stand at the moment. Let’s start with the war in Ukraine…

From a strategic perspective, the situation in Ukraine resembles a smaller-scale version of the situation in Europe in late 1944. At that point, the Allies had successfully completed the D-Day invasion and liberated Paris.  Read More

11.28.23- A Global Rush for Uranium Could Harm the UK’s Nuclear Power Ambitions
Rhodri Morgan

The global rush for uranium, and the consequential price spike, could pose a major headache for the UK’s nuclear power ambitions. 

Nuclear power currently provides about 10 percent of the world’s electricity. And, despite this relatively small market share, – fossil fuels account for 61 percent and renewables 29 percent – nuclear energy, and by extension uranium production, is big business. Read More

11.27.23- Farmers Embrace Dual-Purpose Land Use with Solar Panels
Felicity Bradstock

The rapid development of the world’s renewable energy capacity will require the use of a great deal more land, which is not always easy to come by. While many governments worldwide are backing huge solar projects, getting landowners and local communities to support the development of these sites can prove difficult. In recent years, there has been a significant rise in the quantity of dual-purpose land use, as farmers welcome the use of energy-producing equipment alongside animal grazing or crop production. A growing number of farms are now home to solar panels, which help supply the land needed for energy production while providing farmers with an extra source of income. Read More

11.25.23- Arizona solar canal project aims to save water while making power
Loz Blain

With most of Arizona in a state of moderate to extreme drought, the Gila River Indian Community and the US Army Corps of Engineers have signed a deal to begin a solar-over-canal project designed to cut down evaporation and boost solar efficiency.

With a similar project planned for California still yet to get started, the US$6.74-million project becomes the first of its kind to begin construction in the USA. The first phase aims to build solar photovoltaic shades stretching across the 1-10 Level Top canal for a length of around 1,000 ft (305 m). Read More

11.24.23- Hydrogen Set to Compete with Fossil Fuels
Brian Westenhaus

University of Houston energy researchers suggest hydrogen fuel can potentially be a cost-competitive and environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline and diesel, and that supplying hydrogen for transportation in the greater Houston area can be profitable today.Read More

11.23.23- Will Battery Storage Make Gas Power Generation Redundant?
Irina Slav

Back in 2017, Tesla switched on the world’s biggest battery storage facility. Located in South Australia, the 159 MWh battery array can supply 30,000 homes with electricity in case of a blackout. For about one hour.

Fast forward five years, and we have Reuters reporting that battery storage technology has advanced so far that utilities are now canceling plans for new gas generation capacity. But that’s not the whole story. Read More

11.22.23- Global Uranium Shortage Spurs Investment Frenzy
Tyler Durden

The price of yellowcake - uranium concentrate used in nuclear generation - has hit the highest level in more than 15 years, driven by soaring demand as a crucial energy source for a "green future." Additionally, global supply disruptions are further pressuring prices higher.

Nymex futures tracking physical-market contracts of uranium ore topped $80.25 per pound on Monday, the highest level since February 2008. Since we first recommended uranium stocks in December 2020, in a note titled "Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze,"uranium ore prices have soared 173%. Read More

11.21.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: An Answer Long-Overdue
Al Benson Jr.

Most of you didn’t notice that the United Nations has plans for how your children are educated, did you? Well, you are not supposed to realize this and if your kids are still in public school you will probably never discover this. Even if your kids are in a private school or being homeschooled, the United Nations, the world’s foremost busybody organization, has a consuming interest in how you educate your children. The fact that it’s none of their darn business is beside the point. They plan on making it their business. Read More

11.20.23- China's Shift to Renewable Energy Could Curb Emissions Sooner Than Expected
Felicity Bradstock

A shift in demand and significant investments in the green energy sector over the last decade could lead to a decline in China’s greenhouse gas emissions starting as early as next year. China is a renewable energy powerhouse, expected to lead not just Asia but the world when it comes to green energy, metals and minerals mining, and clean tech. Thanks to years of investment and favourable government policies, China is finally reaping the rewards by becoming a global market leader and changing the face of its energy industry to eventually respond to future demand in a greener way. Read More

11.18.23- Private Sector Takes Lead
in Nuclear Fusion Race

Haley Zaremba

Nuclear fusion is closer than ever to becoming a commercial reality as the private sector takes over research and development. For decades, nuclear fusion research lay outside the scope of private enterprise, as the leading technology used to conduct such experiments were so prohibitively expensive that only public funding could reasonably be expected to foot the bill. But now, thanks to a breakthrough from one of those state-funded projects, nuclear fusion has become far more accessible, and venture capitalists have wasted no time jumping into the nascent market.  Read More

11.17.23- Heating Homes With Natural Gas Is More Than 40% Cheaper Than Electricity: US EIA
Naveen Athrappully

Natural gas remains the main source of heating in American homes despite the current administration’s electrification push.

Heating homes this winter using natural gas is estimated to cut down energy costs by more than 40 percent compared to electricity, according to a recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Read More

11.16.23- Ocean Thermal Energy:
The Future of Renewable Power?

Haley Zaremba

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is the oldest renewable energy technology you’ve never heard of. The idea for the technology, which exploits the differing temperatures in different layers of ocean water to create energy, is almost 150 years old, but is only now gaining traction for practical application. While OTEC will likely never take over the energy industry, it could become an essential source of energy for island nations and other coastal communities in the decarbonization era. Read More

11.15.23- Experimental Geothermal Lab Taps Bedrock Heat For Green Power
Haley Zaremba

A new solution to stop-gapping renewable variability is bubbling under the ground in the Southwest United States. An experimental geothermal lab in Beaver County, Utah thinks that it has the solution to keeping energy pumping to the grid when the sun isn’t shining and the breeze isn’t blowing on U.S. solar and wind farms. 

The lab, funded since 2018 with $220 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, sits atop bedrock that reaches a blistering 465 degrees Fahrenheit. With this limitless supply of heat deep under the ground, the lab is commissioned to test geothermal energy solutions through a trial and error experimental approach. Read More

11.14.23- Colombia’s Cocaine Boom Is Fueling An Unprecedented Spike In Oil Theft
Matthew Smith

Colombia has a severe problem, cocaine. The South American country is the world’s largest producer of the narcotic, and it continues setting record highs for the cultivation of coca, the drug’s key raw ingredient, and cocaine production. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported for 2022 (Spanish) that the amount of land cultivated with coca soared 13% year over year to 230,000 hectares. This, the agency believes, possessed the potential to produce a record 1,738 metric tons of cocaine, yet another all-time high. The tremendous amounts of gasoline required to treat coca leaves, coupled with soaring cocaine production and higher oil prices, is causing petroleum theft in Colombia to spiral higher. Read More

11.13.23- A Nuclear Renaissance
Is the Best Path Forward

RJ Roux & Yaël Ossowski

For decades, the fruits of the fracking revolution, plus our newly minted status as the world’s top net exporter of natural gas, demonstrated that American consumers were swimming in bountiful energy.

But as the pandemic effects of supply chain shortages, the war in Ukraine, and higher government spending gave way to inflation hikes, suddenly all eyes were on utility bills. In 2021, Americans spent as much as 25% more on energy than in the previous year. Read More

11.11.23- NRG Sells Billion-Dollar Stake In Texas Nuclear Power Project
Leonard Hyman & William Tilles

Earlier this week, NRG Energy announced the sale of its 44% ownership interest in the two-unit South Texas Nuclear Project outside of Houston to Constellation Resources. The purchase price for about 1100 mws of nuclear capacity was $1.75 billion, although both parties noted that the final transaction price was closer to $1.4 billion after tax considerations. The seller, NRG, stated in its press release that the proceeds would be used mainly for corporate purposes and common stock repurchase. NRG has been the target of an activist investor, Elliott Associates, and this combined asset sale and stock repurchase can be seen as a form of corporate appeasement. NRG’s shares have meaningfully underperformed the utility and broad market indices in recent periods. Read More

11.10.23- Short Sellers Circling
The Clean Energy Sector

Alex Kimani

Three weeks ago, shares of Israel-based solar inverter manufacturer, SolarEdge Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:SEDG) crashed spectacularly after the company issued weak guidance for its upcoming third quarter earnings report. SolarEdge said Q3 revenues, gross margin and operating income will all come in below the low end of the company’s prior guidance, citing "substantial unexpected cancellations and pushouts of existing backlog from our European distributors," due to higher than expected inventory in the channels as well as slower than expected installation rates. Read More

11.09.23- The Problem With Refilling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Alex Kimani

Last year, the Biden administration conducted the largest ever sale from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to the tune of 180 million barrels, in a bid to stabilize soaring oil prices in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The administration set a target to start refilling the reserve once oil prices dropped to $70 per barrel but later the department announced that it hopes to sign purchase contracts for the oil at $79 a barrel. Read More

11.08.23- LNG And Offshore Energy Projects Face Delays As Nickel Prices Soar
Rystad Energy

A vigorous recovery from the global aerospace industry has increased demand for nickel, a key aircraft component prized for its corrosion resistance, high strength and exceptional mechanical properties. This could inadvertently complicate or delay new energy infrastructure developments by diverting metal supply from critical sectors such as upstream, offshore and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, which use nickel for various equipment applications in extreme environments. Read More

11.07.23- LNG Trading Made The Difference For Oil Supermajors In Q3
Tsvetana Paraskova

The European oil and gas majors, which are also the world’s top LNG traders, reported a mixed bag of third-quarter results, with some beating or meeting estimates and others missing expectations amid diverging gas trading opportunities in Europe and Asia. 

Shell and TotalEnergies, the world’s largest and second-largest LNG traders, respectively, reported strong gas trading earnings thanks to the open arbitrage to Asian markets in the third quarter. But BP, another major with a typically strong gas trading business, saw weak results in the division between July and September, which dragged overall earnings below analyst estimates.  Read More

11.06.23- Will Petrochemicals Continue
To Drive Oil Demand?

Felicity Bradstock

Petrochemicals have been driving oil demand in recent years but that could all change if new restrictions come into place to curb the production of plastics and other products. The global demand for petrochemicals has been gradually rising over the last two decades, as an increasing number of consumers spend on petrochemical-derived products. There are fears that the industry could continue to drive demand, keeping the world reliant on fossil fuels, long after we shift away from oil and gas for our energy needs unless policy change happens now.  Read More

11.04.23- Africa’s Geothermal Power Sector Set To Overtake Europe
Rystad Energy

Africa’s geothermal sector will attract at least $35 billion in investments by 2050, showing the critical role geothermal is set to play in meeting the continent’s rapidly growing energy demand. Rystad Energy’s latest projections reveal this significant investment will see Africa’s installed geothermal capacity surpass Europe by the end of the decade. Read More

11.03.23- France Uncovers Massive White Hydrogen Deposit
Haley Zaremba

The green hydrogen revolution has an energy problem. For years, green hydrogen – the industry term for hydrogen produced from renewable and clean energies – has been touted as a silver-bullet solution for hard-to-decarbonize industries. But producing green hydrogen is energy-intensive, making it a pricey endeavor that is often suboptimal in terms of efficient resource use. But yet another kind of hydrogen, white hydrogen, could finally provide the kind of climate panacea that green hydrogen has long promised – and failed – to deliver. Read More

11.02.23- Hedge Funds Bet Big
On Uranium Stocks

Tyler Durden

As uranium ore trades at records highs, several hedge fund managers are expanding their allocations to uranium stocks, with a conviction that an increasing embrace of nuclear energy as part of a "green" future -- along with geopolitically-rooted ambitions to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas -- means the trend has a lot of room to run. 

A dozen years after the disaster at Japan's Fukashima reactor put nuclear energy on worldwide probation -- and in, Germany, gave it a death sentence -- various factors are combining to bring it back into the acceptable realm of energy solutions.  Read More

11.01.23- Supercritical CO2 pilot aims to make steam turbines obsolete
Loz Blain

Steam turbines still produce most of the world's power, but supercritical carbon dioxide promises to be much cheaper, and 10% more efficient as a medium than water, using 10X smaller turbines. A US$155-million pilot plant is now complete in San Antonio.

Ribbons were cut at the Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) pilot plant in Texas on October 27 as it was declared "mechanically complete" by project partners Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), GTI Energy, GE Vernova, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Read More

10.31.23- Perovskite Solar Cell Breakthrough Boosts Performance At High Temperatures
Brian Westenhaus

A University of Hong Kong (CityU) team has engineered a unique type of self-assembled monolayer, or SAM for short, and anchored it on a nickel oxide surface as a charge extraction layer for building perovskite solar cells.

Perovskite solar cells are a promising frontier in the solar energy landscape, known for their impressive power conversion efficiency. However, they have one significant drawback: they don’t tend to perform well when exposed to high temperatures. Read More

10.30.23- Plastic Waste Becomes Clean Hydrogen Goldmine
Haley Zaremba

A study focused on turning waste plastics into high-value graphene just unlocked a new way of producing hydrogen that could transform the nascent industry and, on a grander scale, positively alter projected decarbonization pathways. The breakthrough could be a win-win for the environment, recycling plastic waste – of which the world has approximately 6.3 billion tons – while providing high-yield hydrogen gas which can be used as clean fuel, all while producing graphene as an end product which makes the whole process economically viable. The breakthrough is detailed in a new paper in Advanced MaterialsRead More

10.28.23- American Small Reactor Development Suffers From Short Sellers
Leonard S. Hyman and William I. Tilles

NuScale is America’s contender in the race to build a commercial, nuclear small modular reactor (SMR). The company has two buyers for its product lined up. But the stock’s price seems to say that there is trouble ahead, especially after the recent release of a negative research report by a small short selling firm, Iceberg Research. Peak to trough the shares have fallen about 75% and since their initial $10 a share public offering via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in May 2022 the shares (ticker SMR) have dropped to $3.80. Read More

10.27.23- Water-injected 2.0-liter turbo-four hydrogen engine spits out 410 hp
Matthew Piepenberg

Austrian mobility technology company AVL had a pretty good day for itself earlier this month, when it confirmed simulations that showed its prototype 2.0-liter turbo hydrogen race engine developing over 200 hp-per-liter. AVL uses a water-injection system alongside its turbocharger to moderate combustion for safer burn and improved power production ... and so far it's working like a charm. Read More

10.26.23- How China Increasingly Dictates The Speed Of The Energy Transition
Tsvetana Paraskova

No other large energy-consuming country has such an outsized impact on both fossil fuels and renewables consumption than China. Its economic growth and infrastructure build-out in the last three decades have changed the world of energy. But now China is changing and setting the pace of the global energy transition, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its new World Energy Outlook 2023 report this week. Read More

10.25.23- Germany And France Finally Compromise On Nuclear
Leonard S. Hyman and William I. Tilles

If you believe that nuclear power should play a role in the energy mix, pay attention to the nuclear deal fashioned this October between Germany and France.   

Here is the background, simplified. France depends heavily on nuclear power generated by state-owned EDF. Existing French nuclear plants will require major capital improvements and the plants under construction are enormously expensive. The French government wants to subsidize its nuclear program, but other European Union (EU) countries (especially Germany) objected, because state subsidies are not in the spirit of the EU’s energy markets. The market should determine prices, and should determine the appropriate means to supply the demand, the opponents argue. Read More

10.24.23- The Growing Importance Of Graphite In The Clean Energy Economy
Kurt Cobb

The substance that constitutes a pencil lead and an important component of electric vehicle batteries is suddenly less available. China, the world's top producer of graphite, will now require permits for shipments abroad. The country is the world's top producer and plays a special role by refining 90 percent of the graphite used in electric vehicle batteries.

In what now seems like the ancient past, pencils were used to fill out bubble sheet forms and tests because the machines that read them did so by sensing the electrical conductivity of the graphite-filled ovals. (Today, optical scanners read such forms by sensing the reflectivity of the ovals.) Read More

10.23.23- Why Solar Stocks Are
Plunging Right Now

Alex Kimani

Shares of Israel-based solar inverter manufacturer, SolarEdge Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:SEDG) have cratered more than 30% in Friday’s intraday session a day after the company issued weak guidance for its upcoming third quarter earnings report. SolarEdge said Q3 revenues, gross margin and operating income will all come in below the low end of the company’s prior guidance, citing "substantial unexpected cancellations and pushouts of existing backlog from our European distributors," due to higher than expected inventory in the channels as well as slower than expected installation rates. Read More

10.21.23- Global Natural Gas Supply Needs $7 Trillion Investment To Meet Demand
Charles Kennedy

Around $7 trillion in global investments in natural gas supply are necessary to ensure enough gas and avoid supply crunches through 2050, according to the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ).

As countries look to cut emissions and shift to gas from coal, these investments will have to go to development of new gas fields, construction of new LNG export facilities, and expansion of existing plants, according to an IEEJ report cited by Bloomberg. Read More

10.20.23- World’s Electric Grids Incapable Of Supporting Renewable Energy Goals: Agency
Naveen Athrappully

Electricity grid capacity available in the world isn't keeping pace with the rapid growth of "clean energy" technologies, possibly putting governments' climate goals at risk, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In order to achieve climate goals set by global governments, more than 80 million kilometers (49.7 million miles) of electric grids have to be added or refurbished by 2040, which is the “equivalent of the entire existing global grid,” according to the Oct. 17 IEA report. Even though “electrification and renewables deployment are both picking up pace,” there is a risk of the clean energy transition stalling due to a lack of “adequate grids to connect the new electricity supply with the demand.” Read More

10.19.23- What A Bloody Mess!'
Egon von Greyerz

What a bloody mess! Well, economic collapses and wars always are. But sadly it will become a lot messier!

We now have two dangerous wars, maybe we will have a global war. We have a coming collapse of stock markets and debt markets and a banking system which probably will not survive in its present form. 

But there is always another side of the coin. Read More

10.18.23- EV Battery Costs Could Surge By 22%
Jennifer Kary

The Renewables MMI (Monthly Metals Index) saw a welcome boost month-on-month, rising 6.27%. Grain-oriented electrical steel, silicon, and neodymium were the main factors that increased the index, while the lithium-ion battery market remains a point of contention. In the case of silicon, futures initially rose back in June due to production cuts within China, the world’s #1 manufacturer. It appears the after-effects of the cuts finally impacted prices, mainly due to stockpiling buyers. That said, most steel parts of the index dropped or moved sideways. The UAW strike primarily impacted these sectors, causing lower steel demand, fewer steel scrap supplies, and price hikes from Cleveland Cliffs. Read More

10.17.23- Why Uranium has
Enormous Upside Potential

Doug Casey

International Man: What makes uranium attractive as a speculation?

Doug Casey: First of all, consider simple physical reality. Uranium is the cleanest, cheapest, and safest form of mass power generation. I understand that most people will be shocked to hear that, so let me explain. Read More

10.16.23- Polymer Rain, Geoengineering Watch Global Alert News, October 14, 2023, #427
Dane Wigington

View Video

10.14.23- For Clean Energy Stocks, It’s All About Bond Yields Right Now
Alex Kimani

Renewable energy stocks have been badly pummeled, underperforming their fossil fuel peers and the broader market in the current year, with the selloff accelerating in recent months thanks to higher interest rates and a hawkish Fed outweighing considerable backing by the Biden administration. Read More

10.13.23- The Nuclear Microreactor Race
Is Heating Up

Tyler Durden

During a wide-ranging interview with The Epoch Times, the leadership of Nano Nuclear Energy Inc. predicted they would win the race to commercialize a reactor small enough to fit in a shipping container.

"By 2030, we're pretty convinced we'll be the first company to sell microreactors," said Nano Nuclear CEO James Walker, a nuclear physicist who previously led the development of the Rolls-Royce Nuclear Chemical Plant. Read More

10.12.23- New neodymium-doped material can fish uranium out of seawater
Tsvetana Paraskova

Since the 1960s, researchers have been turning to an unlikely harvesting ground for uranium: the world's oceans. Now, an Australian-led team has moved the prospect of sea-based uranium harvesting another step forward with a cheap and easy-to-make material.

As the planet begins its slow move away from carbon-based fuel sources, alternative energies are coming to the fore. While solar, wind, and hydroelectric technologies tend to steal the spotlight in this arena, nuclear energy is still a mighty contender. In fact, in 2017, it contributed to about 10% of the world's energy production and in 2022, 8 GW of new nuclear power joined the global grid. Read More

10.11.23- Hamas Attack Brings Middle East War Premium Back To Oil Markets
Tsvetana Paraskova

War premium returned to the oil market on Monday after the weekend attack by Hamas on Israel, which upended—again—the geopolitical landscape in the world’s most important oil-exporting region, the Middle East, and buried hopes of an imminent Saudi-Israel rapprochement that could ease the tight oil market. Read More

10.10.23- Are You Ready For What Comes Next?
Jim Quinn

“I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me.” – George Carlin

Well that sure was a weekend of lies, misinformation, disinformation, and laying the ground work for the next stage in their Great Reset plan. The regime media is dutifully propagandizing the masses with the utterly ridiculous tripe that somehow rock throwing Hamas “terrorists” completely surprised the most militarized country in the world, launched 5,000 rockets, slaughtered hundreds,  Read More

10.09.23- AI-Tech Leads To NASA Energy Breakthrough
Alex Kimani

NASA and energy startup ADC Energy USA, Inc. have jointly published a breakthrough validation of a "new form of energy" that does away with conventional AC/DC power conversion. The two parties have been researching "alternating direct current" (ADC) for 5 years, an AI-enabled, energy technology that makes lossless power transmission possible. 

"ADC is the greatest innovation I've seen in my 50-year career," Terry Boston, advisor to The White House and the United States Congress, and former CEO of PJM, gushed when speaking at a keynote speech at the Energy and Mobility Conference & Expo. Read More

10.07.23- Time To Tell America's
Climate Cult "Stop!"

J.G.Collins

Describing the mission of his National Review magazine in its inaugural edition of on Nov. 19, 1955, the then not-yet 30 year-old conservative icon William F. Buckley wrote that his new magazine "stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."

Rishi Sunak, Britain's Tory prime minister, seems to have bravely adopted at least some of that mission by challenging Britain's radical climate agenda. It is a lesson for the United States. Read More

10.06.23- Hawkish Fed Triggers Renewable Stock Drop Despite Biden's Backing
Alex Kimani

Renewable energy stocks have badly underperformed their fossil fuel peers and the broader market in the current year, with the selloff accelerating in recent months thanks to higher interest rates and a hawkish Fed outweighing considerable backing by the Biden administration. Read More

10.05.23- Small Nuclear Reactors: The Answer To Big Tech's Energy Crisis?
Felicity Bradstock

Microsoft could be the first of several companies to prepare to use small nuclear reactor (SMR) technology for its high energy consumption, as AI and other technologies become more widely used. There has been great enthusiasm around the potential of SMRs, which could be built faster and at a much lower cost than a traditional nuclear reactor. This month, Microsoft posted a job opportunity for a “Principal Program Manager Nuclear Technology,” suggesting its interest in using SMRs in the future, to support its energy-intensive operations. As companies begin to use a vast range of digital technologies in their day-to-day operations, their energy consumption could increase substantially, making the use of low-carbon nuclear power increasingly attractive.  Read More

10.04.23- Huff 'n' puff geothermal fracking: Earth batteries at 200% efficiency
Loz Blain

Sage Geosystems has pioneered a new form of cheap energy storage that uses the Earth as a giant bellows, pumping water into underground fractures, then letting it squirt back up at 70% efficiency – or 200% efficiency if you also harvest heat energy.

The "huff & puff" method, as it's known, is adapted here from a similar technique that's used in oil production, where a fluid – often steam – is injected into a shale oil deposit and left there for several hours to heat the oil, reducing its viscosity and making it easier to pump out. Read More

10.03.23- The Great Oil Conspiracy: It has been known since the end of WWII that oil is not a fossil fuel; it is abiotic
Rhoda Wilson

There are two basic theories for the origin of crude oil: biotic and abiotic.

The origin of petroleum or natural gas may seem like a strange debate to have but determining whether this fuel is a fossil fuel or not is important.

If these fuels are truly fossil fuels, then they are limited in supply and alternative energy resources would need to be created at some point. Read More

10.02.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Greatest Show on Earth
Nick Alvear

View Video

09.30.23- Game-Changing Titanium Dioxide Electrode Transforms CO2 To Clean Fuel
Brian Westenhaus

Tokyo University of Science researchers have developed novel in-liquid plasma-treated titanium dioxide electrode decorated with silver nanoparticles to facilitate enhanced conversion of carbon dioxide to useful products, such as syngas, a clean alternative to fossil fuels.

The work was made available and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Read More

09.29.23- The Answer to American Electric Grid Reliability Is Fuel Cells
Neil Chatterjee

In 1932, Americans were doggedly trudging through year three of the Great Depression when a candidate for president spoke of “the human importance of electric power in our present social order … It lights our homes, our places of work and our streets. It turns the wheels of most of our transportation and our factories. In our homes it serves not only for light, but it can become the willing servant of the family in countless ways … Electricity is no longer a luxury,” he declared. “It is a definite necessity.” Read More

09.28.23- Wind And Solar Dreams Clashing With Hard Economic Facts
Irina Slav

Two years ago, in May 2021, the International Energy Agency published what many saw as a landmark report about the progress of the transition to net zero.

In that report, the IEA stated there was no need for new oil and gas exploration—even back then—because alternative energy sources were taking over quickly. Read More

09.27.23- The Utility-Scale Energy Storage Market Is Booming Again
Alex Kimani

"For batteries to play the ultimate backup system, we're so far away from that it's not funnyTo really make the vision that we like to get to, a highly decarbonized electric system, you're going to have to have batteries deployed in many orders of magnitude beyond what we have now."

This grim reality was exposed by Jim Robb, President and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC), in 2021 shortly after the infamous Texas power grid failure as he lamented the country’s limited power backup system. Robb’s observation came at a time when large-scale energy storage was just taking off following a nearly 90% decline in prices of lithium-ion batteries over the past decade. Unfortunately, the sector suffered a massive blow after Covid-19 triggered huge supply chain disruptions leading to hundreds of clean energy projects being canceled or delayed. Read More

09.26.23- Uranium Investors Bet Big On Nuclear Renaissance
Alex Kimani

Uranium and the nuclear energy sector are enjoying a renaissance. There has been a palpable shift in support for nuclear power amid the transition to low-carbon fuels as well as a renewed push to enhance energy security after the global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Read More

09.25.23- Space-Based Solar Power Could Become A Reality
Felicity Bradstock

There’s been story after story about the potential for space-based solar power this year, as the ambitious energy plan gains the backing of prominent figures, tech companies and academic institutions. What seemed a pipedream just a few years ago now appears increasingly viable as the rise in investments in green technologies expands the potential for innovative clean energy projects immensely. Read More

09.23.23- Oil Keeps Flowing Uphill,
China Keeps Sliding Downhill

David Haggith

Two of the major trends I’ve anticipated and have been tracking keep getting worse for the global economy.

It is going from bad to worse at a pace where you can feel the change every day now. Oil has rapidly risen to a price level where it is changing trading strategies on Wall Street, and China has sunk to a level that it’s making businesses question whether to do business in China at all. Read More

09.22.23- New BRICS Members Solidify The Bloc’s Renewable Leadership
Rystad Energy

The planned expansion of the BRICS bloc, through the addition of new members Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Ethiopia and Argentina, will transform the grouping into a global leader in renewable energy in the coming decades, Rystad Energy research shows. The six new members will join the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in January 2024. As the transition to cleaner technology accelerates, the alliance is projected to derive over 80% of its power from renewable sources by 2050, with total capacity reaching 11 terawatts (TW), more than double the combined 4.5 TW expected in the Group of Seven (G7) nations Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US. Read More

09.21.23- Oil, Cracks Soar After Russia Bans Diesel, Gasoline Exports
Tyler Durden

With Diesel prices already soaring (in anticipation of the highly vaunted soft landing), recently sending the diesel crack to 2023 highs and assuring that refiners have another blowout quarter, Russia just handed a gift to the Exxons of the world - and spat in the face of Christine Lagarde - when it "temporarily banned" exports of the diesel in a bid to stabilize domestic supplies, adding pressure on already tight global fuel markets. Read More

09.20.23- A New Energy Era: Wind And Solar Outpace Hydropower
Robert Rapier

The Renewable Juggernaut

Over the past decade, the global growth rate of renewable energy trounced every other energy source. During that period, modern renewables (excluding hydropower and geothermal) grew exponentially, at an average annual rate of 12.6%. Renewables were the only energy category that grew globally at double digits over the past decade.

For perspective, in 2010 the world consumed 10.6 exajoules of renewable energy. In 2022, that reached 45.2 exajoules. The 5.2 exajoule increase in renewable consumption in 2022 was a record increase for one year, and it set a new all-time high for renewable energy consumption in a year. Read More

09.19.23- Fueling up Inflation
David Haggith

Higher energy costs are raising concerns of a negative impact on the broader economy at a time when the Federal Reserve is aiming to curb inflation….

Energy prices, specifically gasoline, were the biggest culprit of August's hotter-than-expected Consumer Price Index print released last week. Read More

09.18.23- Low-emissions flash method upcycles waste plastic into "free" hydrogen
Paul McClure

Researchers have used a low-emissions method to harvest hydrogen and graphene from waste plastics. They say it not only solves environmental problems like plastic pollution and greenhouse gas production, but the value of the graphene by-product could offset the costs of producing hydrogen.

Hydrogen is used to power vehicles, generate electricity, and heat our homes and businesses. Hydrogen contains more energy per unit of weight than fossil fuels, which is important from an environmental standpoint as the main cause of global greenhouse gas emissions is the release of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Read More

09.16.23- An Apparently Unstoppable Oil Price Rally
Michael Kern

There appears to be no end in sight for the current oil price rally or for the bullish catalysts driving it as tightening supply combines with the apparent return of Chinese demand growth. Read More

09.15.23- China's Solar Boom:
Capacity Set To Hit 1 TW By 2026

Rystad Energy

China’s solar sector is set to break records in the coming years . When installed capacity crosses the 500 gigawatts (GW) mark by the end of 2023, it will have taken 13 years to reach that milestone. That total, however, will be doubled to 1 terawatt (TW) in just three additional years. Rystad Energy modeling shows total installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in China will cross the 1,000 GW mark by the end of 2026. Read More

09.14.23- Single-bladed floating wind turbine promises half the cost, more power
Loz Blain

We haven't seen a floating offshore wind turbine like this before. Touchwind claims its innovative single-blade turbines will solve several problems to drive down cost and downtime, using a single, huge blade with no fancy active pitch controls.

Most of the world's best wind resources are way offshore, in ocean far too deep to exploit with typical fixed-tower turbines. The deep sea could thus make a huge clean power contribution, while creating far less trouble wildlife than onshore wind farms. Read More

09.13.23- $1.5 Trillion Dollars Worth Of 'White Gold' Found In Supervolcano
On Nevada-Oregon Border

Tyler Durden

An ancient supervolcano along the Nevada-Oregon border contains what could be the world's largest single deposit of lithium. The findings could reshape the West's supply of the critical metal -- and might even change the geopolitical game with China. Read More

09.12.23- WTI Breaks Out To New Nov Highs After OPEC Data Shows Huge Supply Shortfall
Tyler Durden

Oil prices had been coiling for a few days ahead of this data and are breaking out now after OPEC reports that global oil markets face a supply shortfall of more than 3 million barrels a day next quarter - potentially the biggest deficit in more than a decade.

If realized, it could be the biggest inventory drawdown since at least 2007, according to a Bloomberg analysis of figures published by OPEC’s Vienna-based secretariat. Read More

09.11.23- Africa’s Energy Transition Plan
Is Nonsense

Irina Slav

Africa is a treasure trove of metals and minerals and home to some of the world's best natural resources, including wind and solar.

Africa currently accounts for a measly 4% of global carbon dioxide emissions. A variety of organizations want it to stay that way. Read More

09.09.23- China Races Ahead In Global Nuclear Power Development
Felicity Bradstock

China is by far the world leader in nuclear reactor development at present. The country has been rapidly expanding its nuclear energy industry in line with its renewable energy development, to diversity and become a leader in several clean energy sources. In contrast, the development of new plants in the U.S. has gradually dwindled in recent decades, following public and government scepticism around nuclear safety and the high costs involved with new projects. So, will China achieve its aim of becoming the world leader in nuclear power in the long term?  Read More

09.08.23- Europe And The U.S. Gear Up For A Geothermal Boom
Alex Kimani

With the global transition to clean energy in full swing, traditional renewable energy sources such as solar and wind have, unsurprisingly, been hogging the limelight. Unfortunately, one powerful renewable energy source has been conspicuously missing in the conversation: Geothermal energy. 

Despite its many obvious benefits, geothermal energy--which taps the heat within the earth’s crust--is criminally underutilized in the United States. In 2019, the U.S. generated ~18,300 GWh from geothermal sources. While that appears impressive at first glance, that figure works out to just  0.4% of U.S. power generation. Read More

09.07.23- Subsidies Spark Green Energy Gold Rush In Conservative Regions
Irina Slav

Massive federal subsidies for wind and solar energy are prompting conservative state governments to reconsider their opinions on low-carbon generation capacity or, indeed, consider having some.

With several hundred billion available in the form of subsidies for solar and wind farms, EV manufacturing, and batteries, among others, the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last year has prompted a race among states for a piece of the subsidy pie. Read More

09.06.23- China's Appetite For Lithium Grows Despite Downturn In Prices
Sohrab Darabshaw

It seems that China’s hunger for lithium remains unsatiated. Indeed, a new S&P Global report highlighted the “red dragon’s” efforts to gobble up critical minerals, including lithium battery elements, from mines across the globe. 

The report explained how China’s reach continues to grow in terms of minerals, particularly those critical to products that have major implications for the future. Faced with more restrictive foreign investment policies in the developed markets, Chinese firms are turning their attention to mining. This includes buying up key minerals like lithium and cobalt in locations such as Africa. S&P Global believes China will continue to build its influence over these minerals and the industries that rely on them as it works with governments keen on foreign investments across the developing world. Read More

09.05.23- China's #1 oil company says peak gasoline demand has already passed
Loz Blain

China's extremely rapid adoption of EVs has forced oil giant Sinopec to adjust its forecasts, saying peak domestic gasoline demand has already passed and it's all downhill from here. The repercussions will be global; China has been the biggest growth market for refined oil products for more than 20 years. 

According to CNEV Post, Chinese new car buyers are now choosing "new energy vehicles" (NEVs, meaning battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars) at a rate of 37.8%, a percentage which has rocketed up from 30.0% in 2022, 15.5% in 2021 and just 5.4% in 2020.  Read More

09.04.23- Infrastructure Struggles To Keep Up
With Green Energy Boom

Haley Zaremba

The renewable revolution is causing a modern-day gold rush. Countries around the world are solidifying plans to implement mass-scale development of solar and wind farms and to electrify vehicle fleets. While this is great news for global greenhouse gas emissions, these renewable technologies still rely on the extraction of finite metals and minerals such as lithium, copper, and cobalt. So while the renewable revolution is associated with a downturn in fossil fuel extraction, it will fuel a major mining boom.  Read More

09.02.23- New Data Proves Nuclear Energy Is Safer Than You Think
Felicity Bradstock

There is now a concerted effort to change the global public perception of nuclear power, as governments worldwide look to rapidly expand their clean energy sources to achieve a green transition. Nuclear power has come on a long journey, from widely popular to demonised and back again. But many people remain uncertain about how safe nuclear plants actually are, causing widescale distrust and opposition to the clean energy source. Now, governments and international organisations are once again viewing nuclear power as key to a green future, but will they achieve the popular backing of the public in this assessment? Read More

09.01.23- Fluorinated Aniliniums Lead To A Breakthrough In Perovskite Solar Cells
Brian Westenhaus

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne researchers have found a way to significantly improve the operational stability of perovskite solar cells at high temperatures, which is necessary for their use in terawatt power grids.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have gained attention for their high power-conversion efficiencies and low-cost solution processing. However, ensuring their stability at high temperatures has been a challenge, as the points of contact between their different layers (“interfaces”) are susceptible to degradation, leading to energy loss and decreased performance. Read More

08.31.23- Saving the Environment from Environmentalists
Edward Ring

The oceans director of Greenpeace told USA Today that groups attempting to link offshore wind to whale deaths are part of a “cynical disinformation campaign.”

–  Whale carcasses on Martha’s Vineyard fuel speculation about wind turbines, New Bedford Light, June 22, 2023  Read More

08.30.23- Tech Breakthrough Makes $2.5 Trillion Hydrogen Boom Possible
James Stafford

The U.S. government has announced a proposed $7 billion (for starters) on desperately needed breakthroughs in clean hydrogen production. 

The Department of Energy’s (DoE) biggest bet is on nuclear power plants, which they are hoping to convert into North America’s premier clean hydrogen producers. Read More

08.29.23- Ultra-hot carbon batteries promise super-cheap heat and energy storage
Loz Blain

Bill Gates-backed startup Antora Energy is preparing to roll out a containerized, modular heat battery, designed to store renewable energy at the lowest possible cost – then release it efficiently as electricity or industrial process heat. 

It's all in the name of decarbonizing heavy industry – a job that simply needs to be done, and a tricky one given the intermittent nature of renewable energy. It's easy for factories to run 24/7 when there's fossil fuel available to create heat as required, but what about when the Sun's not shining? Read More

08.29.23- Zinc-Air Surpasses Lithium In Major Breakthrough In Battery Tech
Brian Westenhaus

Edith Cowan University’s recent study into the advancement of sustainable battery systems suggests zinc-air batteries have emerged as a better alternative to lithium chemistries.

The research paper reporting the research and the results has been published in the journal EcoMat. Read More

08.28.23- BRICS Member India Ditches US Dollar, Purchases 1,000,000,000 Barrels of Oil With Rupees for First Time Ever: Report
Henry Kanapi

BRICS member India has reportedly purchased oil from the United Arab Emirates using its national currency for the first time ever.

In July, reports surfaced that India and the UAE have inked an agreement that allowed the BRICS member to use rupees instead of the US dollar when trading with the Middle Eastern nation. Read More

08.26.23- Graphite Wars: The Trillion Dollar Battery Race Has A Big Problem
Tom Kool

The EV industry faces a huge challenge of replacing, in record speed, internal combustion engines (ICE) that have ruled the roads for over a century—and domesticating the entire supply chain to meet the demands of an electric vehicle industry quickly closing in on a trillion-dollar market value. 

So far, it’s all been done backwards, which is how many revolutionary ideas unfold …  Read More

08.25.23- Next Hurricane Could Shut-In 40% Of Gulf Of Mexico Production
Alex Kimani

The volume of natural gas flowing to LNG giant Cheniere Energy's (NYSE:LNG) Corpus Christi export plant in Texas was on track to decline nearly 30% on Wednesday, a day after Tropical Storm Harold hit South Texas. According to Refinitiv data, gas volumes flowing to Corpus were on track to drop to about 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Wednesday from 2.1 bcfd previously. At full capacity, the three liquefaction trains at the Corpus Christi LNG export plant are capable of chilling  2.4 bcfd of natural gas into LNG, enough to supply 12 million U.S. homes  Read More

08.24.23- Innovative Electrolyzer Paves Way For Sustainable Propane Production
Brian Westenhaus

Illinois Institute of Technology research revealed a promising breakthrough in green energy.Their design is an electrolyzer device capable of converting carbon dioxide into propane in a manner that is both scalable and economically viable.

The paper published in Nature Energy discusses the pioneering research.

As the United States races toward its target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, innovative methods to reduce the significant carbon dioxide emissions from electric power and industrial sectors are critical. Read More

08.23.23- Southeast Asia's $76 Billion
Green Energy Push

Rystad Energy

Southeast Asian national oil companies (NOCs) and traditional upstream players are progressively focusing on cleaner and more environmentally friendly energy initiatives. Rystad Energy's analysis reveals a consistent commitment to these initiatives in the years to come, with investments set to exceed $76 billion from 2023 to 2025. The upward trend is set to continue, with a projected total outlay of $119 billion by the end of 2027. This expenditure will be driven by investments in wind, solar and geothermal projects. Read More

08.22.23- What To Expect From This Week’s BRICS Summit
Michael Kern

This week, Johannesburg will play host to the 15th BRICS summit, a pivotal gathering of emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Read More

08.21.23- Solar catalyst captures methane to create pure hydrogen and carbon
Loz Blain

Methane has a greenhouse effect 80 times worse than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, and emissions are skyrocketing even as we start reducing CO2. That makes UCF's new hydrocarbon-capturing, sunlight-powered catalyst a very compelling idea.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida's Nanoscience Technology Center and Florida Space Institute say they've come up with a boron-rich photocatalyst, engineered with nanoscale defects, or structural irregularities, that allow it to split hydrocarbon chains like methane into harmless components. Read More

08.19.23- Recycling Breakthrough Makes Plastic Waste A High Value Commodity
Brian Westenhaus

The world is awash in waste plastic. Wind blows it across everyone’s property. Its value is so low that no good program exists to drive the recycling effort past 10%.

Although many Americans dutifully deposit their plastic trash into the appropriate bins each week, many of those materials, including flexible films, multilayer materials and a lot of colored plastics, are not recyclable using conventional mechanical recycling methods. Read More

08.18.23- Waterless high-density hydro makes more energy from less elevation
Loz Blain

UK company RheEnergise is quietly rolling out an interesting new approach to pumped hydro energy storage, aiming for a capacity of at least 100 MW by 2030. It works with small hills instead of mountains, making it relevant in many more areas.

It's one of the simplest and lowest-tech ways to store energy and then recover it on demand: use cheap energy during the day to pump a bunch of water up a big hill into a tank, then release it slowly at night, letting gravity do its work and running a turbine to generate energy as and when you need it. Read More

08.17.23- Another Blow To The Petrodollar:
India & The UAE Complete
First Oil Sale In Rupees

Michael Maharrey

In another blow to dollar dominance, India and the United Arab Emirates settled an oil trade without converting local currencies to dollars for the first time on Monday, as India’s top refiner made a payment for oil in rupees.

Indian Oil Corp. bought a million barrels of oil from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in a dollar-free transaction. Read More

08.16.23- New Mexico Looks To Become A Renewable Powerhouse
Felicity Bradstock

New Mexico is naturally endowed with several clean energy sources including wind and solar, as well as geothermal resources, which makes it highly attractive for renewable energy projects. The state ranks second in the U.S. for potential solar energy production and tenth in wind energy potential. The government of New Mexico hopes to advance the region’s role in clean energy and expects renewable energy leasing to be significant in the coming years.  Read More

08.15.23- What Happens When Essential Commodities Become Luxuries?
Kurt Cobb

It has now become more fashionable to talk about shortages. Computer chips have been in shortage and then in glut in the last few years. Natural gas was acutely in shortage in Europe after the war in Ukraine and pipeline sabotage brought supplies from Russia down to a trickle. Then, heroic efforts at conservation and in obtaining liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments to Europe led to a dramatic reduction in price. But last week just the potential for labor strikes among LNG workers in Australia, a major LNG exporter, sent the European price spiking again.

The world seemed so well supplied with everything in the previous decade that the shortages of this decade seem shocking to those with memories that do not extend further back than 2010. Read More

08.14.23- Morocco’s Green Energy Potential: Europe's Ticket Away From Russian Fuel?
Haley Zaremba

Morocco is trying to turn around its energy legacy, from an energy mix heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels, to becoming a net exporter of clean energy. Morocco’s sunny climate, coastline, and wide open spaces lend themselves to massive scale solar and wind farms, and its proximity to Europe puts the country in a prime position to be a key source of energy for the European Union. While the potential is enormous, so too are the challenges facing the North African nation. Read More

08.12.23- How Extreme Temperatures
Could Melt The U.S. Economy

Haley Zaremba

Extreme heat is costing the United States economy billions of dollars each year. As weather patterns change around the world, heat waves are getting more frequent, more intense, and longer in duration. But many of the buildings and factories that the U.S. workforce spends its days in were not built with extreme heat in mind, and many lack air conditioning entirely, especially in the industrial sector. The result is a massive dip in productivity that is costing the United States billions of dollars on a yearly basis, and that price tage is only going to keep growing. Read More

08.11.23- The Looming Oil Crisis
The World Is Ignoring

Gail Tverberg

It has recently become clear to me that heavy oil, which is needed to produce diesel and jet fuel, plays a far more significant role in the world economy than most people understand. We need heavy oil that can be extracted, processed, and transported inexpensively to be able to provide the category of fuels sometimes referred to as Middle Distillates if our modern economy is to continue. A transition to electricity doesn’t work for most heavy equipment that is powered by diesel or jet fuel. Read More

08.10.23- Helium Wars: Why Are Tech Giants Fighting Over This Rare Gas?
Michael Kern

A daunting list of key industries the world over is now wondering where their future supplies of helium will come from. 

What battery metals are to gigafactories, helium is to everything from scientific research, medical technology and high-tech manufacturing to space exploration and national defense.  Read More

08.09.23- The DOE Is Betting Big On A Geothermal Game-Changer In Utah
Haley Zaremba

A huge experiment to produce electricity using enhanced geothermal energy is taking place underground in Utah. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is funding an experimental pilot project drilling well over a mile deep into the Earth’s crust to access a continuous heat source for clean energy production. While the technology is in its infancy and there are questions about whether enhanced geothermal could ever be cost-competitive with other forms of clean energy production, the DOE is convinced that it’s a good enough idea to spend hundreds of millions of dollars onRead More

08.08.23- Another New Nuclear Reactor Energizes U.S. Clean Energy Hopes
Felicity Bradstock

Following the energy shortages of 2022, the U.S. has been racing to reinvigorate its nuclear energy sector. Long neglected, nuclear power appears to be making a comeback in the U.S., having gained funding and political support from the Biden administration, and being seen as an obvious option to help accelerate a green transition. In recent years, the U.S. has been trying to simply keep its existing nuclear reactors ticking over but, for the first time in 7 years, a new reactor is up and running, spurring greater optimism for the future of U.S. nuclear energy. Read More

08.07.23- Our Oil Predicament Explained: Heavy Oil And The Diesel Fuel It Provides Are Key
Gail Tverberg

It has recently become clear to me that heavy oil, which is needed to produce diesel and jet fuel, plays a far more significant role in the world economy than most people understand. We need heavy oil that can be extracted, processed, and transported inexpensively to be able to provide the category of fuels sometimes referred to as Middle Distillates if our modern economy is to continue. A transition to electricity doesn’t work for most heavy equipment that is powered by diesel or jet fuel. Read More

08.05.23- RADIOACTIVE Fish Near Fukushima Renews Concerns of Nuclear Wastewater
Dumps In Ocean

Zoey Sky

Japanese plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) studied a black rockfish in May and found that it contained levels of radioactive cesium that were 180 times over Japan’s regulatory limit.

The radioactive fish was caught near drainage outlets at the TEPCO plant, where three nuclear reactors melted down amidst a tsunami in March 2011. Rainwater from areas near the reactors flows into the area where the fish was caught. Read More

08.04.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Twelve undeniable signs globalists are engineering the end of humanity
Mike Adams

It's no longer taboo to publicly talk about depopulation. Even many who once dismissed the concept as a conspiracy theory are now publicly acknowledging the reality that global efforts are under way to drastically reduce the human population on planet Earth.

Mainstream media now frequently talks about "climate lockdowns" as a good thing -- to cease human activity on planet Earth in order to "save the planet" from so-called climate change, a wholesale fabrication and fake science fraud rooted in the lie that carbon dioxide is somehow bad for life on the planet. (Without it, there would be no photosynthesis, no plants, no animals and no humans.) Read More

08.03.23- Green Hydrogen's Potential In Propelling Eco-friendly Aviation
Felicity Bradstock

With the aviation industry contributing around 2 percent of global carbon emissions, the sector must find a way to go greener. While many industries are beginning to decarbonise operations, some are finding it extremely difficult to find the right path to cleaner operations. The aviation sector has long relied on fossil fuels to power planes, with little alternative available. As demand for commercial flights is expected to continue increasing, one industry that the aviation sector is hopeful for is hydrogen, with the potential to one day power aircraft with green hydrogen-based fuels. Read More

08.02.23- What NASA and the European Space Agency are admitting but the media are failing to report about our current heat wave
Thomas Lifson

The current heat wave is being relentlessly blamed on increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there is a much more plausible explanation, one that is virtually endorsed by two of the world's leading scientific organizations.  It turns out that levels of water vapor in the atmosphere have dramatically increased over the last year and a half, and water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures, a mechanism that dwarfs any effect CO2 may have. Read More

08.01.23- Low-cost additive turns concrete slabs into super-fast energy storage
Loz Blain

Cement and water, with a small amount of carbon black mixed in, self-assembles into fractal branches of conductive electrodes, turning concrete into an energy-storing supercapacitor

MIT researchers have discovered that when you mix cement and carbon black with water, the resulting concrete self-assembles into an energy-storing supercapacitor that can put out enough juice to power a home or fast-charge electric cars. Read More

07.31.23- Green Hydrogen Gets Greener With Record-Breaking Solar Device
Brian Westenhaus

Rice University engineers have created a device that “turns sunlight into hydrogen” with record-breaking efficiency. The device integrates next-generation halide perovskite semiconductors with electrocatalysts in a single, durable, cost-effective and scalable device. The press release believes the engineers have set a new standard for hydrogen technology. The device is factually a solar driven water splitting cell.

According to a study published in Nature Communications, the device achieved a 20.8% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency. Today the study is not behind a paywall.  Read More

07.29.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Virgin birth at Cambridge thanks to genetically modified fruit flies
Michael Franco

By decoding a genetic process responsible for asexual reproduction, researchers induced virgin births for the first time in a normally sexual fruit fly species. It was then discovered that the remarkable trait was passed down to all of the flies' daughters. The finding could help scientists find new ways to protect crops from insect pests that are increasingly able to reproduce without mates. Read More

07.28.23- The Green Energy Revolution Is Fueling A Modern-Day Gold Rush
Haley Zaremba

The renewable revolution is causing a modern-day gold rush. Countries around the world are solidifying plans to implement mass-scale development of solar and wind farms and to electrify vehicle fleets. While this is great news for global greenhouse gas emissions, these renewable technologies still rely on the extraction of finite metals and minerals such as lithium, copper, and cobalt. So while the renewable revolution is associated with a downturn in fossil fuel extraction, it will fuel a major mining boom. Read More

07.27.23- Cheap proton batteries compete with lithium on energy density
Loz Blain

RMIT engineers say they've tripled the energy density of cheap, rechargeable, recyclable proton flow batteries, which can now challenge commercially available lithium-ion batteries for capacity with a specific energy density of 245 Wh/kg.

That's as compared to the ~260-odd Wh/kg delivered by the lithium-ion batteries in a current Tesla Model 3 battery pack, but without using any lithium, thus avoiding a forecasted lithium squeeze, as well as geopolitically sensitive dependence on China in the battery supply chain, and all kinds of end-of-life issues. Read More

07.26.23- Endurance Of Electric Vehicles Falters In Extreme Heat
Tyler Durden

Electric vehicles are known to perform sub-optimally in cold weather -- if that's a loss of range and power. A new study has found similar adverse effects when EVs are subjected to scorching temperatures. 

Auto blog Carscoops first reported that data science company Recurrent tested several EVs to "analyze the relationship between batteries and their range." Recurrent's data found that if temperatures rise over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, then the ranges of EVs diminish. Read More

07.25.23- Arkansas Could Lead America’s Lithium Production Boom
Tsvetana Paraskova

Southwestern Arkansas could be the lithium production hotspot of America the way the Permian is now for oil, as mining companies and oil and gas supermajors are looking to tap more of the domestic U.S. lithium resources to reduce dependence on China.   

Mining firms Standard Lithium and Tetra Technologies, as well as supermajor ExxonMobil, are looking to build lithium extraction capacities in Arkansas and source one of the most important metals for the energy transition via a process called direct lithium extraction (DLE).  Read More

07.24.23- Fervo heralds a revolution in geothermal power technology
Loz Blain

Fervo's "next-generation geothermal" technology has proven itself in testing, becoming the most productive enhanced geothermal plant in history. The company hopes its approach will radically expand access to clean energy, like shale did for oil.

There's a near-unlimited amount of clean energy under our feet, in the form of hot rocks. You can generate clean electricity 24/7 – not intermittently, like solar and wind – if you can get water down into that rock and back to the surface to drive steam turbines. A reliable source like this would make the clean energy transition much smoother. Read More

07.22.23- African Solar Panels are
Cost-Competitive With China

Haley Zaremba

Africa is home to 60% of the world’s highest quality solar resources, but has only 1% of the world’s installed solar power production capacity. An under-developed industrial sector has deterred solar power developers from taking advantage of the continent’s massive solar power potential, but in a world with rising energy demand and ever more urgent calls for decarbonization, the renewable energy industry can no longer afford to ignore Africa – and Africa itself can no longer afford to be ignored. Read More

07.21.23- Agrivoltaics: A Game Changer for Land Use In Renewable Energy
Haley Zaremba

The renewable revolution is facing a major land use issue that threatens to seriously impede the growth trajectory of the clean energy sector. Mass-scale renewable energy infrastructure like wind and solar farms take up much more land area than traditional fossil fuel production plants, and the sector is increasingly competing for land with other major industries including agriculture. Going forward, the renewables sector will have to get creative about using land more efficiently and in a more collaborative manner with other major land users. Read More

07.20.23- Navigating The Hurdles Of Green Hydrogen Production
Felicity Bradstock

There is great optimism around the future of green hydrogen, with many seeing it as a super-fuel that will replace oil-derived options, as well as be highly competitive with electric battery technology. However, we are far from achieving this ambition yet, mainly due to small-scale production operations and high costs. Many companies around the globe have plans to produce green hydrogen, but some are battling challenges that are slowing down the rollout of the clean fuel. Despite improvements in production processes, thanks to greater investment in the sector in recent years, the production and transportation costs of green hydrogen remain much higher than other fuels, including other types of hydrogen. Read More

07.19.23- New Startup Looks To Blend AI And Nuclear Energy
Haley Zaremba

The future of the global energy sector is in the hands of Artificial Intelligence. AI is proving to be an increasingly essential component of decarbonization pathways and solving the energy trilemma: the tricky problem of producing energy that is A) sufficient for global development, B) affordable and accessible for all, and C) environmentally sustainable. 

Solving the trilemma and meeting climate goals will necessarily involve systems transformation at an unprecedented scale, which will depend on an intelligent, responsive, and flexible computing system able to recognize and predict complex patterns of production and consumption. Already, AI is playing a major role in renewable energy, maximizing efficiency of power production, and research and development of new materialsRead More

07.18.23- Renewables surprisingly "on track" to meet net zero by 2050
Loz Blain

Renewable energy is taking off at exponential rates, putting global clean power "in line with ambitious net-zero scenarios." A new report suggests fossil fuel demand in the energy sector has already peaked, and "will be in freefall" by 2030. 

"The fossil fuel era is over," claims the report, titled X-Change: Electricity - On Track for Net Zero and published by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) – a non-partisan, non-adversarial sustainability research and consulting organization headquartered in Colorado. The report was put together in partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund.  Read More

07.17.23- Adding sugar to flow battery creates huge power and longevity boost
Loz Blain

PNNL researchers have discovered that dissolving a simple sugar into the electrolyte in a flow battery boosts peak power output by a remarkable 60%. What's more, after being constantly cycled for a year, the battery lost almost none of its capacity. 

Flow batteries – well, most flow batteries, anyway – aren't the kinds of things you'd expect to find in a car or laptop. They're typically best suited to large, long-duration energy storage jobs, so there's been a lot of interest in them in recent years, as cities struggle to work out how to smooth out the daily, seasonal and weather-related intermittency of renewable energy sources. Read More

07.15.23- Washington Unleashes $20 Billion In Clean Energy Funds
Simon Black

$20 billion will be up for grabs to facilitate clean energy projects that will “massively expand investment in new projects that reduce pollution across the country,” the White House said in a statement released on Friday.

The $20 billion in funds is part of the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Read More

07.14.23- The Rise Of Perovskite: A Quantum Leap In Solar Panel Efficiency
Felicity Bradstock

With huge amounts of investment being pumped into developing new renewable energy technologies and improving existing equipment worldwide, we are seeing innovations in traditional green energy sources. Solar panels are getting more efficient, capable of generating energy even when the sun’s not shining, and wind turbines are getting bigger and stronger. This shows that renewable energy operations are not rigid, that technologies can evolve, and the appearance of a solar or wind farm today may not be the same as that in 50 years. This also suggests that efficiency will continue to improve as greater funding is provided for research and development in green energy. Read More

07.13.23- China’s Dominance of Crucial Rare Earth Elements and What Comes Next
Doug Casey

International Man: What are Rare Earth Elements (REEs), and why are they so important?

Doug Casey: The REEs are a group of 17 elements that you may recall from your high school chemistry class. They take up two rows in the periodic table, sitting by themselves at the bottom of the chart. They’re chemically similar to each other.

REEs are widely dispersed on the Earth’s surface. They aren’t “rare” per se, but since they’re not generally concentrated, you only rarely find deposits that are rich enough to qualify as a mine for elements like germanium, gadolinium, ytterbium, yttrium, or 14 others with exotic and obscure names. Read More

07.12.23- MIT’s Groundbreaking Discovery In The Intriguing World Of Superconductivity
Brian Westenhaus

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study sheds surprising light on how certain superconductors undergo a ‘nematic transition’ – unlocking new, superconducting behavior. The results could help identify unconventional superconducting materials.

Under certain conditions  some materials shift their structure to unlock new, superconducting behavior. This structural shift is known as a “nematic transition,” and physicists suspect that it offers a new way to drive materials into a superconducting state where electrons can flow entirely friction-free. Read More

07.11.23- Big Oil's Radical Proposal: Curtail Consumption, Not Production
Irina Slav

Last year, in the middle of an energy crunch, European governments called on their citizens to consume less energy. They also lashed out at Big Oil for making billions from the squeeze.

Now, Big Oil is the one calling for a reduction in energy consumption. Essentially, supermajors have suggested that people should use less of their products. But they don't want to slash production. Read More

07.10.23- The Promise And Controversy of Bamboo Biofuels
Haley Zaremba

A new scientific paper from GCB Bioenergy has found that bamboo could be the next big thing in biofuels. The authors argue that industrialized agriculture of bamboo for diversion to fuel mixes could be a win-win for the environment, as bamboo is fast-growing, absorbs carbon dioxide, and provides substantial quantities of oxygen to the atmosphere. Various transformative processes including fermentation and pyrolysis could then be used to convert raw bamboo into diverse bioenergy products, with bioethanol and biochar being the primary outputs. Read More

07.08.23- The Bearish Case For Oil Markets
Osama Rizvi

In my commentary for Oilprice.com in April, when OPEC+ surprised the markets with production cuts, I maintained that many were misinterpreting the development, as it will not result in higher oil prices due to falling demand—a tacit confession by OPEC+ and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, the recent announcement of OPEC+ to cut 1 million barrels a day in July also failed to push oil prices higher, indicating underlying weakness in the global economy. Read More

07.07.23- Innovative Supply Chain Model Marks A New Era For Hydrogen
Brian Westenhaus

A University of Technology Sydney team of researchers has created a new supply chain model which could empower the international hydrogen renewable energy industry.

Hydrogen has been touted as the clean fuel of the future; it can be extracted from water and produces zero carbon emissions. However, it is currently expensive to transport over long distances, and currently no infrastructure is in place to do so. Read More

07.06.23- Biden Blocking Sun & Destroying Earth
Dane Wigington

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07.05.23- The world’s appetite for solar panels is squeezing silver supply
Bloomberg

Changes to solar panel technology are accelerating demand for silver, a phenomenon that’s widening a supply deficit for the metal with little additional mine production on the horizon.

Silver, in paste form, provides a conductive layer on the front and the back of silicon solar cells. But the industry is now beginning to make more efficient versions of cells that use a lot more of the metal, which is set to boost increasing consumption. Read More

07.04.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: More Truth About World War II
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Last week I noted some facts that puncture the myth of the neocons who control the government that World War II was the “good war,” a battle of good against evil, that shows the need for perpetual war. We must fight Russia and China, they say: we don’t want another “Munich,” do we? The facts tell a different story. Read More

07.03.23- The World Economy Is Becoming Unglued; Models Miss Real-World Behavior
Gail Tverberg

A common belief is that if the world does not have adequate energy, the result will be high prices. These high prices will allow more fossil fuels to be extracted or will allow renewables to substitute for fossil fuels.

In my view, the real issue is quite different:

Inadequate energy supply of the types the economy requires can be expected to affect the economy in a way that causes it to become “unglued.” The economy will gradually fall apart as infighting becomes more of a problem. Read More

07.01.23- Are Rocks The Future
of Solar Power Collection?

Brian Westenhaus

The next generation of sustainable energy technology might be built from some low-tech materials: rocks and the sun. Using a new approach known as concentrated solar power, heat from the sun is stored then used to dry foods or create electricity.

The School of Materials, Energy, Water and Environmental Sciences (MEWES), Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology team reporting in ACS Omega has found that certain soapstone and granite samples from Tanzania are well suited for storing this solar heat, featuring high energy densities and stability even at high temperatures. Read More

06.30.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Controlled Demolition
of Nation-States

J.B. Shurk

Generally speaking, central banks are empowered to control the supply of money by employing a number of tools that include buying government debt, selling government bonds, adjusting reserve requirements, and setting official interest rates.  Operating under various legal mandates to sustain an overall healthy economy, central banks ostensibly pursue policies that will produce relatively low inflation, steady economic growth, and low public unemployment. Read More

06.29.23- Hydrogen Economy Gets A Boost With New Low-Cost Catalyst
Brian Westenhaus

An Argonne National Laboratory team has developed a new catalyst composed of elements abundant in the Earth. It could make possible the low-cost and energy-efficient production of hydrogen for use in transportation and industrial applications.

The reporting paper for the research has been published in Science. Hydrogen can power vehicles while emitting nothing but water. Hydrogen is also an important chemical for many industrial processes, most notably in steel making and ammonia production. Using cleaner hydrogen is highly desirable in those industries. Read More

06.28.23- Fuel From Thin Air: A Technological Feat Or Economic Folly?
Robert Rapier

Every few years, a company announces that it is attempting to commercialize the production of fuel from air and water. To be clear, there are no technical barriers against doing this.

Indeed, carbon can be extracted from air, and hydrogen can be produced from water. Together, those building blocks can be reacted to make fuel — or any number of products. I could easily devise a scheme to produce acetaminophen from air and water. Read More

06.27.23- The Rare Metal Keeping Xi and Biden Up At Night
Mark Goodwin

The ground beneath Case Lake in northeastern Ontario houses a critical mineral that may form the heart of one of the most pressing North American security issues of the century. 

The critical mineral is cesium (Cs), and its discovery and potential for development has become a battleground between Canada and the U.S. on one hand, and China on the other. Read More

06.26.23- Toyota CEO: "Our NEW Hydrogen Engine Will Destroy The EV Industry!"
Koji Sato

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06.24.23- Direct Lithium Extraction Is The EV Industry’s Shale Boom
Alex Kimani

Over the past few years, the lithium markets exploded as the electrification drive went into overdrive. EV makers like Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) have been scrambling to secure supplies amid rapid EV growth and tight lithium supplies, sending lithium carbonate prices up more than sixfold and spodumene up nearly tenfold in the space of a few years. Read More

06.23.23- Fast, low-cost direct lithium extraction could avert a supply crisis
Loz Blain

Canadian company Volt Lithium has developed and pilot-tested a new low-cost lithium extraction method to pull this critical battery metal out of low-concentration brines. Now it plans to turn old oil fields into lithium production operations. 

As the global transition to electric vehicles gathers momentum, and power grids worldwide turn to huge banks of batteries to balance demand against the intermittent supply of renewables, the world is going to need unprecedented amounts of lithium to fuel its insatiable hunger for batteries. Read More

06.22.23- Can The U.S. Wean Itself off
Russian Uranium?

Alex Kimani

Back in March 2022, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden signed an executive order that banned the import of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal to the United States. Although the ban together with EU sanctions were blamed for skyrocketing global energy prices, U.S. refiners were none the worse for wear since Russia supplied just 3% of U.S. crude oil import.  Read More

06.21.23- China Returns To Coal As Hydropower Falters
Tsvetana Paraskova

China’s coal-fired generation has increased the most of any power source this year as hydroelectric production has fallen amid lower-than-normal rainfalls that have reduced water levels on the biggest rivers and depleted hydro reservoirs.    

Wind and solar generation have also jumped this year as China leads global renewable energy installation capacity, but the need for stable power generation in the coming heatwaves and energy security is prompting increased coal use, offsetting the emissions benefits of record renewables generation. Read More

06.20.23- ‘Nuclear Diesel’ Could Become a Gamechanger In Energy Markets
Alex Kimani

Back in February, a  proposal by the EU to completely ban cars that run on fossil fuels by 2035 faced heavy opposition led by the bloc’s largest economy, Germany, as well as Poland and Italy. Although a strong clean energy player itself, Germany is also Europe’s ICE superpower, and feared that such a dramatic move could sound a death knell for its pivotal industry. Read More

06.19.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Great Ron Unz
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Ron Unz is a brilliant man with a Ph.D in theoretical physics. He has again and again used his analytical abilities and vast knowledge to question fashionable myths. In doing so, he shows great courage in going against the powers-that-be, who all too often silence those who oppose them. Let’s look at a few examples in which Ron Unz has cast light on current events. Read More

06.17.23- Toyota Claims Solid State Battery Breakthrough That Will Give EVs 932 Mile Range
Tyler Durden

The next iteration in the world of electric vehicles is getting closer...at least, if Toyota's claims are accurate.

The legacy automaker is now claiming it has "found a technological breakthrough that will allow it to bring solid state batteries to market as early as 2027," according to PC Mag. Read More

06.16.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Shock Poll: RFK Beats Biden On Favorability!
Ron Paul

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06.15.23- 5 Weird Energy Innovations That May Become Reality
Charles Kennedy

Scientists are constantly pushing frontiers in search for solutions to the many challenges that human civilization faces, and nowhere is this truer than in energy.

With the tone of climate change alarm-sounding growing louder by the day, alternative energy sources have become one of the most active areas of innovation. Some of the results of that innovation are literally eye-watering. Others, you could call eye-opening. Read More

06.14.23- Looming Copper Shortage Could Be A Wake-up Call For Big Tech
Kurt Cobb

I'm certainly not the only person who noticed before now that sustaining our increasing consumption of copper would be difficult as I suggested in my July 2022 piece entitled "Acceleration forever? The increasing momentum of mineral extraction." But the mainstream media now seems to be catching up with the story. The boom in demand for copper for electronic devices, electric vehicles, and energy infrastructure is likely to lead to shortages in the next decade. Read More

06.13.23- Is Geothermal Energy The Key To Decarbonization?
Felicity Bradstock

As governments and private firms worldwide invest heavily in research and development into alternative clean energy sources, geothermal energy is attracting greater attention. Although still highly underdeveloped, the potential for new geothermal operations is significant, with countries across Europe converting old fossil fuel projects into geothermal energy sites and using new operations to power industry. But other countries, such as Peru and Japan, are finding it hard to get political and public support for these types of projects. Read More

06.12.23- Zero Carbon Green Agenda
Is Impossible In All Respects
 
William Engdahl

Why are major governments, corporations, think tanks and the Davos WEF all promoting a Zero Carbon global agenda to eliminate use of oil, gas, coal? They know that the turn to solar and wind-based electricity is impossible. It is impossible because of the demand for raw materials from copper to cobalt to lithium to concrete and steel exceeding global supply. It is impossible because of the staggering trillions in cost of battery backup for a “reliable” 100% renewable electric grid. It is also impossible without causing the collapse of our present standard of living and a breakdown of our food supply that will mean mass death from starvation and disease. All this for a scientific fraud called man-made global warming?  Read More

06.10.23- Smoke Causes U.S. Solar Power Generation To Plunge By 50%
Charles Kennedy

Smoke from Canada’s wildfires is preventing solar panels from catching sunlight, and solar power generation in the northeast United States is tumbling by more than 50% as a result.

ISO New England, the operator of the grid, said on Thursday that “In recent days, smoke from wildfires in Canada has traveled to New England, significantly lowering production from solar resources in the region compared to what ISO New England would expect absent the smoke.” Read More

06.08.23- Understanding The Economic Realities Behind Wind And Solar Energy
Gail Tverberg

A major reason for the growth in the use of renewable energy is the fact that if a person looks at them narrowly enough–such as by using a model–wind and solar look to be useful. They don’t burn fossil fuels, so it appears that they might be helpful to the environment. As I analyze the situation, I have reached the conclusion that energy modeling misses important points. I believe that profitability signals are much more important. In this post, I discuss some associated issues. Read More

06.08.23- "Walking" anchor and plasma drill promise cheap, deep geothermal power
Loz Blain

Slovakia's GA Drilling has demonstrated a pair of new technologies it says could unlock geothermal power generation more or less anywhere on the planet. Anchorbit and Plasmabit promise much faster and cheaper drilling into hot rock 10 km (6 miles) underground.

The intense heat under the Earth's surface represents a virtually inexhaustible source of reliable clean energy that would be available 24/7 from anywhere on Earth – you could pull it up as steam to run generator turbines, or pipe it directly into heating systems. Read More

06.07.23- How Billionaires Deceive the Public About Global Warming
Eric Zuesse

In a previous article I documented how liberal billionaires deceive liberal voters about policies to address global warming, so as to support only policies that will fail; but in this article, I address how conservative billionaires deceive conservative voters to believe either that global warming doesn’t exist or that if it does it’s not largely a result of the burning of fossil fuels by humans. So: the present article is addressed to conservatives and will expose how conservative billionaires fund the deception of those voters. Read More

06.06.23- World-first space solar demonstration beams power from orbit to Earth
Loz Blain

A Caltech team is celebrating the world's first space-based wireless power transmission, and the first time detectable levels of power have been beamed down to Earth. The Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) aims to unlock huge orbital clean energy resources.

Space-based solar could solve a lot of Earth's clean energy problems; an orbital solar setup can harvest sunlight 24/7 – and the good stuff, too, unmolested by atmosphere or weather conditions. Theoretically, the solar potential in space is eight times better per square meter than a solar panel on Earth. Read More

06.05.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Storm Before The Storm
Michael Snyder

I really don’t know anyone that would argue that the U.S. economy is in great shape right now.  Inflation is out of control, large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over the nation, the housing bubble is starting to implode, and more homeless encampments are constantly popping up in our major cities as poverty spreads like wildfire.  But this isn’t the main event.  I am calling this “the storm before the storm”, because the truth is that this new economic crisis is still only in the very early chapters.  Unfortunately, much more suffering is on the way, and our country is not going to be able to handle it. Read More

06.03.23- The Race For Solar Power
From Space Is On

Tsvetana Paraskova

In the latest ambitious project to use solar energy in space for powering the earth, a public-private Japanese partnership plans to test as soon as in 2025 if solar power generated in space can be beamed to the earth and converted into electricity.  

The Japanese venture is the latest in a series of plans and experiments in recent months to test if solar power converted into microwaves could be beamed to receiving stations on the earth’s surface for large-scale use.  Read More

06.02.23- Nuclear Power May Become Crucial In Decarbonization Efforts
Tsvetana Paraskova

Nuclear power generation could help the world decarbonize energy amid growing global demand for electricity with the ‘electrify everything’ push, including in transportation.

The energy crisis of the past year and a half has led to increased support for nuclear power in many countries, including the U.S., the UK, and even Japan. Read More

06.01.23- Bizarre 460-foot "battery tanker" set to ship electrons by 2026
Loz Blain


Japanese company PowerX is moving ahead with its strange plan to build a "mobile power station" in the form of a 140-meter (460-ft) electric "battery tanker," which will carry 241 megawatt-hours of renewable energy across the sea over short distances.

The idea here is simple enough: renewable energy is often generated a fair distance from where it's most needed, so let's build an electric ship full of batteries, and jolly well ship it there.  Read More

05.31.23- Five Things I Truly Don't Understand About The "Inevitable Energy Transition
Jude Clemente

This list could be closer to 50 but let’s just stick to a handful of them. I literally live in this business every day, and I’m just so confused. 

1. In a world that is apparently getting both warmer and colder because of global warming, how is it that we can increasingly rely on non-dispatchable (i.e., intermittent, usually unavailable), weather-dependent electricity from wind and solar plants to displace, not just supplement, dispatchable (i.e., baseload, almost always available) coal, gas, and nuclear power?  Read More

05.30.23- Scientists Report Breakthrough With Very Low Cost Calcium Battery
Brian Westenhaus

Tohoku University researchers have recently developed a prototype calcium metal rechargeable battery capable of 500 cycles of repeated charge-discharge. Five hundred cycles is the benchmark for practical battery use. The breakthrough was made thanks to the development of a copper sulfide nanoparticle/carbon composite cathode and a hydride-based electrolyte.

With the compulsive sales of electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage systems on the rise, the need to explore alternatives to lithium-ion batteries has never been greater. Read More

05.29.23- Mammoths, Sloths, And Camels Are Hurting The U.S. Renewable Revolution
Haley Zaremba

The United States has a power line problem. In order to meet its climate goals by 2050, the country will have to expand its existing power transmission infrastructure at an unprecedented scale and pace. But a litany of challenges from a Kafkaesque regulatory process that causes interstate power line projects to fall behind by full decades to pushback from bleeding heart environmental activists and deeply red NIMBYs alike. Read More

05.27.23- Coal's green potential: storing energy instead of being burned for it
Michael Franco

Coal is not generally thought of as a clean fuel source, but it might yet have a role to play in the push for greener energy. Researchers say that it could be a great material in which to store hydrogen gas, which is one of the most promising clean fuel sources currently being explored. Read More

05.26.23- Tiny holes key to making lightning-like energy from air, says study
Michael Franco

As anyone who's ever witnessed a bolt of lightning streaking through the sky knows, the air around us can be filled with an astonishing amount of energy. A new study shows that some of this energy can be harvested using a simple perforated nanofilm that can be made from an astonishing variety of materials.

In 2020, Jun Yao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UMass Amherst, and his colleagues grew nanowires from bacteria known as Geobacter sulfurreducens. The scientists showed how those wires could continuously pull electricity out of the air by harvesting even small amounts of humidity. The system relied on the chemistry of the nanowires that encased them. Read More

05.25.23- Are We Nearing An Inflection Point
For Oil?

Cyril Widdershoven

Current oil market fundamentals are under pressure, and if you are listening to economists, hedgefunds or Western governments, you may conclude that the sentiment is decidedly bearish. The current low volatility in oil prices is a sign of a potential economic recession. The ongoing debt ceiling debate adds another factor to uncertainty in oil markets, just after the U.S. banking crisis fears dissipated. While bears are currently making a lot of noise, the reality might actually be the opposite. There are indications that a potential bull market is on the horizon, especially when considering the latest oil demand figures presented by the IEA in Paris and OPEC. Read More

05.24.23- Palladium May Be Key To New Era Of Superconductors
Brian Westenhaus

At issue is how can we produce the best superconductors that remain superconducting even at the highest possible temperatures and ambient pressure? Vienna University of Technology with collaboration from Japan show there is a ‘Goldilocks zone’ of superconductivity where palladium-based materials (‘palladates’) could be the solution. Read More

05.23.23- How A Cactus Inspired Scientists To Make Cheaper Hydrogen
Brian Westenhaus

Engineers at The University of Texas at El Paso have proposed a low-cost, nickel-based material as a catalyst to help split water more cheaply and efficiently. Their inspiration? A desert succulent known as the prickly pear cactus.

The durability and unique design of prickly pear cactus in desert environments by adsorbing moisture through its extensive surface and ability to bear fruits at the edges of leaves inspired this study to adopt a similar 3D architecture. Image Credit: University of Texas at El Paso. Click the study paper link for more information. Read More

05.22.23- Returning Germany to the Stone Age
Baron Bodissey

The generation of electricity using coal and natural gas is being phased out in Germany. Nuclear power plants are being decommissioned. The intention is that all electrical generation will be accomplished using wind and solar power. “Renewable” energy enthusiasts are certain that somehow, by waving their magical sustainable wands, enough electricity can be generated by these methods to power German homes and industry.

The latest word is that the current Green-dominated government is determined to burn its boats so that there can be no going back. Nuclear plants will not simply be decommissioned; they will be destroyed, to make sure they can never be used again. Read More

05.20.23- Hydrogen’s Scalability Essential to Meet Energy Demand
Robert Hebner 

Years ago, I attended a lecture featuring a leader of China’s energy program at the University of Hong Kong. The significant investment of time and resources in every energy technology and commitment to scaling solutions with reduced environmental impact was eye-opening, but also struck me as an inefficient approach. It is now evident that the world must invest in an all-of-the-above method to meet our energy needs with reduced environmental impact. Read More

05.19.23- Fusion: The Worldwide Race To Capture The Power Of The Sun
Lawrence Kadish

For decades it has been the modern version of turning lead into goldbut its promise of clean inexhaustible energy is coming closer every year.

The atomic process that powers the sun has the means to alter how we harness energy to power our world, but conquering the physics of containing a fusion reaction has proven to be enormously difficult. Yet the nation that creates a genuine, sustained, fusion reaction will own the future. Read More

05.18.23- The Massive Solar And Wind Waste Problem
Felicity Bradstock

Solar and wind power could have a massive waste problem if not dealt with soon, with growing uncertainty over what to do with components at the end of their lifespan. Some countries are now investing heavily in recycling operations for no longer functioning solar panels and wind turbines, while many others are uncertain about how to best tackle the problem sustainably. But one thing’s for sure, wind and solar power will be a lot less green unless governments worldwide introduce comprehensive regulations on how to manage renewable energy waste appropriately. Read More

05.17.23- Electricity Prices Plunge By 75% As Finland Opens New Nuclear Power Plant
Thomas Brooke

While some European nations are sold on nuclear power, others such as Germany remain ignorant of its benefits

The commencement of regular output from a much-delayed Finnish nuclear reactor in April saw electricity prices in the country decrease by more than 75 percent.

The Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear plant completed the transition from testing to regular output last month to become Finland’s first new nuclear plant in more than four decades. It is expected to produce up to 15 percent of the country’s power demand. Read More

05.16.23- Photosynthesis Research Opens New Avenues For Renewable Energy
Brian Westenhaus

Technical University of Munich (TUM) researchers use artificial photosynthesis that may produce syngas (synthetic gas) for the large-scale chemical industry and be able to charge batteries.

Plants use photosynthesis to harvest energy from sunlight. Now researchers have applied this principle as artificial photosynthesis for the basis for developing new sustainable processes. Read More

05.15.23- Helion to supply Microsoft with fusion power by 2028, or pay penalties
Loz Blain

In an outrageously audacious move, Washington-based fusion power startup Helion has signed the world's first fusion power supply deal, promising to deliver Microsoft at least 50 megawatts of clean fusion power by 2028, or pay financial penalties. 

If you'll forgive the pun, there's been a palpable energy in the field of nuclear fusion over the last few years. It's driven by a fresh crop of companies breaking away from the lugubrious pace of massive inter-governmental projects like ITER, exploring new technologies, and promising practical, low-cost, commercial fusion power on radically shortened timelines. Read More

05.13.23- The Great Potential Of Tidal Energy
Haley Zaremba

As the world begins to feel the urgency of the decarbonization imperative, more investing dollars and public support are available than ever before for renewable energy research and development. As a result, even some of the most futuristic and far-fetched ideas are getting real backing – with real results. Already, technologies that feel ripped out of the pages of science fiction are being proven feasible – from creating an artificial sun here on Earth, to beaming solar power straight from the stars to our own energy grids. But it turns out that space is not the only final frontier for clean energy extraction – and the other one is a lot closer to home. Read More

05.12.23- Visualizing The Crucial Role Of Uranium
Tyler Durden

Uranium is the primary fuel for nuclear energy, powering more than 400 reactors that make up 10% of the world’s annual electricity generation.

With countries turning back to nuclear power as a clean energy resource, uranium has become a strategically important metal for the future. 

This infographic by Visual Capitalist's Govind Bhutada and Zack Aboulazm, sponsored by CanAlaska Uranium explores how uranium’s unique properties allow nuclear power to be clean and efficient, and highlights the outlook for its future. Read More

05.11.23- The World Shouldn’t Just Abandon Coal Mines
Felicity Bradstock

As coal mines are being decommissioned at a more rapid rate, in a move away from the most polluting forms of fossil fuels, governments worldwide are considering how these sites may be used for other energy operations. When coal mines close down, hundreds of workers in the region inevitably lose their jobs, with a negative knock-on effect on the local economy. However, if governments and private companies can find a way to reuse these sites for green energy projects, there could be a significant opportunity to re-train workers in new jobs, use existing energy sites to produce power, and support the green transition. Read More

05.10.23- Can Zinc Batteries Compete
with Lithium Ion Batteries?

Brian Westenhaus

ETH Zurich researchers think zinc batteries can be made cheap, efficient, durable, safe and environmentally friendly. All attributes combined would be a breakthrough for the zinc metal battery chemistry effort.

The details about the study have been reported in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.Zinc batteries are considered promising alternatives to lithium-?ion batteries. Read More

05.09.23- The Time Is Finally Right
For Nuclear Fusion

Haley Zaremba

A powerful combination of scientific breakthroughs, private and public funding, and governmental support has drastically changed the outlook for commercial nuclear fusion. Just ten years ago, reporters and industry experts alike were still joking that “Nuclear fusion is 30 years away...and always will be.” Now, seemingly very suddenly, the narrative has shifted from a conversation about “if” to one about “when.” Instead of postulating that we may possibly see reliable and scalable ignition in our lifetimes, experts are now saying that we could see pilot nuclear power plants within a decade. Read More

05.08.23- Goodbye Lithium! NEW Sodium Ion 4.0 Battery Changes Everything in 2023!
Tesla Car World

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05.06.23- Rare Earth Metals See Prices Plunge
Jennifer Kary

The Rare Earths MMI (Monthly Metals Index) suffered yet another significant drop month-over-month. Overall, the index fell 15.81%. These massive drops in prices are the result of several factors. One of the biggest culprits is rising supply and falling demand. Prices for rare earth metals have also decreased due to new mining initiatives cropping up globally. While some parts of the MetalMiner rare earths index traded sideways month-over-month, most components fell, pulling the overall index down sharply.  Read More

05.05.23- A Secret War Is Brewing
In The South China Sea

Haley Zaremba

After a period of relative calm and quiet, there is once again a geopolitical storm brewing out in the South China Sea. This time, there are dual face-offs: one minor spat between China and Malaysia, and another seriously major spat between China and the Philippines. 

The South China Sea is one of the most heavily trafficked maritime routes in the entire world. However, the conditions that make it so valuable – namely, its location on the coasts of a considerable number of Asian countries – have also led to major regional tensions over ownership, rights, and tenure. Vast, overlapping swaths of this prized patch of the Pacific are currently being claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.  Read More

05.04.23- Support For Nuclear Energy In The U.S. Is At A 10-Year High
Haley Zaremba

A brand new Gallup poll shows that support for nuclear energy in the United States is at a 10-year high. This finding is in keeping with what is proving to be a global groundswell in support of the oft-maligned, always contentious form of energy production. As pressure ramps up globally for the rapid expansion of reliable and low-emissions energy, the myriad benefits of nuclear power are becoming less and less overshadowed by its obvious and sometimes terrifying drawbacks. Read More

05.03.23- The Lies About Green Energy
Dave Walsh

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05.02.23- New Nuclear Technology Is Safer, More Efficient And More Sustainable
Robert Rapier

In 2019, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System, which highlights the importance of nuclear power in decarbonizing the world’s energy sector. The paper notes: “For advanced economies, nuclear has been the biggest low-carbon source of electricity for more than 30 years, and it has played an important role in the security of energy supplies in several countries. But it now faces an uncertain future as ageing plants begin to shut down in advanced economies, partly because of policies to phase them out but also under pressure from market conditions and regulatory barriers.” Read More

05.01.23- Are We Prepared For The Unintended Consequences Of Emerging Tech?
Kurt Cobb

Certainly, there a plenty of horror stories about possible disasters awaiting us from emerging technologies. I've written about two of them:

1) the possibility of small cheap, AI-guided drones used to commit mass slaughter (or targeted assassinations) and

2) lethal synthetic viruses for warfare or released by an apocalyptic cult trying to bring the apocalypse forward on the calendar. More recently, some have predicted that advances in artificial intelligence will ultimately lead to the destruction of humanity. Read More

04.29.23- How Competitive
are U.S. Renewable Giants?

Felicity Bradstock

As the U.S. attempts to rapidly expand its renewable energy capacity, with several major green companies emerging, so too are other countries around the world. Renewable startups have quickly risen to become major energy companies, with the potential to contend with big oil and gas names over the coming decades, as the world undergoes a green transition. But what are some of the major players and how do they compare with their U.S. counterparts? Read More

04.28.23- Solar Stocks Routed After Enphase Issues Weak Guidance
Alex Kimani

U.S.-based solar stocks sold off heavily on Wednesday, and only slightly recovered on Thursday after one of the sector’s leading names, Enphase Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:ENPH), delivered a healthy quarterly report but issued weak guidance sparking fears of industrywide weakness. ENPH shares crashed 25.7% on Wednesday to a 10-month low after the company cut its Q2 revenue guidance, blaming it on weakness in its pivotal U.S. market and higher interest rates. 

ENPH took down its U.S.-based peers along with it: First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR)-5.2%, Sunrun (NASDAQ:RUN)-9.6%, NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE)-4.0% while SunPower(NASDAQ:SPWR) lost 9.7%. Interestingly, shares of Chinese solar companies were left unscathed: JinkoSolar Holdings and Daqo New Energy (NYSE:DQ) were flat on the day before rallying on Thursday presumably as new money flowed their way from their U.S. rivals. Read More

04.27.23- Utah FORGE starts production well drilling to further EGS testing
Rich Kozlovich

The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, has announced that the drilling of its second highly deviated deep well has commenced. This second well will serve as the production well of a two well doublet, and will mirror the existing injection well, which was drilled between October 2020 and February 2021. The new well will be located approximately 300 feet from the injection well. Read More

04.26.23- Up To A Trillion Dollars In Clean Energy Subsidies Is Up For Grabs
Irina Slav

Up to a trillion dollars in subsidies for low-carbon energy and related infrastructure are up for grabs amid the Biden administration’s push to transform the U.S. economy. The grabbing has already begun. European Union officials made a lot of noise earlier this year when European companies began making expansion plans for the U.S. in a bid to take part in the incentive race. Read More

04.25.23- Atomic Breakthrough Could Have Huge Implications For Petroleum Refining
Brian Westenhaus

University of Wisconsin-Madison chemical engineers have developed a model of how catalytic reactions work at the atomic scale. It should be an advance considered a breakthrough in computational chemistry research. The understanding could allow engineers and chemists to develop more efficient catalysts and tune industrial processes – potentially with enormous energy savings, given that 90% of the products we encounter in our lives are produced, at least partially, via catalysis. Read More

04.24.23- Solar and wind companies are coming to rural Texas. These residents are trying
to keep them out.

Emily Foxhall

Texas locals are concerned about environmental harm from renewable energy facilities and support a bill that would impose more regulations. The industry says it’s being unfairly singled out.

FRANKLIN COUNTY — Volunteer firefighter Jim Emery grew emotional as he spoke to the crowd at an anti-solar development town hall meeting in his northeast Texas community. Emery, who worked for decades at the nearby coal power plant before it closed in 2018, didn’t worry then about pollution from the plant. Read More

04.22.23- What Does The Future Look Like
For Oil & Gas?

Irina Slav 

Predicting how an industry will look 20 or more years from now is always a challenge. There are always unforeseen factors that have potential powers of disruption that could throw any forecast out the window, and that’s why long-term forecasts tend to be generally vague. Unless they’re about oil and gas. Read More

04.21.23- The Disastrous Economics of Trying to Power an Electrical Grid with
100% Intermittent Renewables

Francis Menton

The effort to increase the percentage of electricity generated by intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar inevitably brings about large increases in the actual price of electricity that must be paid by consumers. The price increases grow and accelerate as the percentage of electricity generated from the intermittent renewables increases toward 100 percent.  These statements may seem counterintuitive, given that the cost of fuel for wind and solar generation is zero. Read More

04.20.23- Wind Power Has A Profitability Problem
Felicity Bradstock

Despite the strong push to shift to green by installing more renewable energy capacity, many are asking whether the wind energy industry will be able to bounce back quickly from huge losses last year to develop the wind power needed to fuel the green transition. In 2022, several major wind energy firms reported billions in losses due to a plethora of challenges that have made it harder to develop new wind farms worldwide. Now the fear is that companies around the globe may be unwilling to invest in the wind projects needed to accelerate the movement away from fossil fuels to green alternatives if they cannot see the potential for profits. Read More

04.19.23- U.S. Gasoline Prices Rise To 5-Month High
Julianne Geiger

U.S. gasoline prices rose for the third week in a row, rising $.076 per gallon from a week ago to $3.65 per gallon yesterday, new GasBuddy data showed, reaching the highest level since November 2022.

The national average for a gallon of gasoline is $.221 cents more than it was a month ago, according to GasBuddy data. Read More

04.18.23- Has Germany’s Era Of Nuclear Energy Come To An End?
Tsvetana Paraskova

Germany took its last three nuclear power plants offline on Saturday, ending more than six decades of commercial nuclear energy use. 

The power plants Emsland in Niedersachsen, Isar-2 in Bavaria, and Neckwarestheim-2 in Baden-Württemberg were taken off the grid this weekend despite rising public support for nuclear power generation in recent months. Read More

04.17.23- What Does The Future Look Like
For Oil & Gas?

Irina Slav

Predicting how an industry will look 20 or more years from now is always a challenge. There are always unforeseen factors that have potential powers of disruption that could throw any forecast out the window, and that’s why long-term forecasts tend to be generally vague. Unless they’re about oil and gas.

When it comes to oil and gas, there are two schools of long-term forecasting thought, and these two schools are at odds with each other. One school—the transition school—argues that the electrification of transport and the transformation of electricity generation will ultimately lead to the demise of oil and gas as commodities underpinning the global economy. Read More

04.15.23- Using microwaves improves production, recyclability of solar cells
Paul McClure

Solar cells are good for the environment, but they have downsides. They’re expensive to make, and there are limited ways to recycle them. But researchers have developed a new manufacturing technique that may address both of these issues.

It’s well known that solar power is good for the environment. There are no direct greenhouse gas emissions, and sunlight is a renewable resource that is unlikely to run out any time soon. Read More

04.14.23- Peak EV: Electric Vehicles Will Fade as Their True Costs Become Clear
Douglas French

“On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce tough new tailpipe emission standards designed to effectively force the auto industry to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars,” reports The Verge, with the provocative headline “The End Is Nigh for Gas-Powered Cars.”

Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) is the newest religion, and we all know who the practitioners are. Electric vehicle (EV) owners sing “Hallelujah” when they pull out of their garages. The investor-class ESG evangelists believe the new belief is in its beginnings. Whatever the Biden EPA does, investor Harris Kupperman thinks it’s likely just the Church of What’s Happening Now. Read More

04.13.23- Tokamak Energy unveils images of fusion power plant slated for 2030s
Paul McClure

Tokamak Energy has released the first images of what its commercial fusion power plant, which it says would safely generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes in the 2030s, would look like.

The company, based near Oxford in the UK, plans to build a fusion pilot plant around its upcoming ST-E1 tokamak, which it says will be ready for rollout in the early 2030s to demonstrate the ability to deliver electricity to the grid, opening the potential for 500-megawatt commercial plants to be deployed worldwide. Read More

04.12.23- The Pros And Cons of Modular Nuclear Reactors
Leonard S. Hyman and William I. Tilles

Did you ever get the feeling that you’ve seen this movie before, except with another name? The remake, maybe in color this time or with a younger cast? Well, nothing wrong with recycling but not when you get the uncomfortable notion that the actors don’t know that somebody did it before them. 

Take nuclear power. What went wrong last time around? We suggest that a principal culprit was customization. Almost every utility wanted a nuke tailored to its needs, site by site. Thus, each site had its own problems, and solving them produced little experience that helped anywhere else. France, of course, was the main exception. The French state, which owned the utility, settled on one design and repeated it again and again. Of course, the French utility had the scale that U.S. and British's utilities lacked. Read More

04.11.23- America’s Hourly Energy Mix, Explained
Tyler Durden

The U.S. has a dynamic electricity mix, with a range of energy sources generating electricity at different times of the day.

At all times, the amount of electricity generated must match demand in order to keep the power grid in balance, which leads to cyclical patterns in daily and weekly electricity generation. Read More

04.10.23- Can Big Oil Scale Geothermal?
Tsvetana Paraskova

The oil and gas industry is exploring the potential of geothermal energy to provide more clean electricity and heating. While geothermal has the advantage of not being dependent on weather like other green energy sources, this form of energy has higher development costs and longer lead times than solar and wind power.   Geothermal could, in theory, be a perfect fit for the oil and gas industry and drilling service providers—it involves subsurface resource mapping, exploration, and drilling. Several major firms and service providers have recently teamed up with start-ups and with technology and engineering firms to explore opportunities for geothermal development in the United States and elsewhere. Read More

04.08.23- Golden Question? Is The Petrodollar The Next Thing To Break?
Matthew Piepenburg

As we warned throughout 2022, the Fed’s overly rapid and overly steep rate hikes would only “work” until things began breaking, and, well…things have clearly begun to break, including the petrodollar.

Even prior to the recent headlines regarding US regional banks, “credit event” stressors were already tipping like dominoes around the world, from the 2019 repo crisis and the 2020 bond spiral to the 2022 gilt implosion. Read More

04.07.23- Silver mirror triples efficiency of perovskite solar cells
Michael Irving

Perovskites are one of the most promising new materials for solar cell technology. Now engineers at the University of Rochester have developed a new way to more than triple the material’s efficiency by adding a layer of reflective silver underneath it.

For the better part of a century, silicon has been the go-to material for making solar cells, thanks to its abundance and efficiency in converting light to an electrical current. But in just the last decade, a new contender has rapidly risen through the ranks – perovskite, which is much cheaper and has already caught up to silicon in efficiency.Read More

04.06.23- Oil Prices Soar As OPEC+
Shocks The Market

Irina Slav

OPEC+ on Sunday surprised oil markets with an announcement that it will reduce its output further, by some 1.66 million barrels daily.

Reuters noted in a report that with the new cut, the total output reduction amount from OPEC+ will come in at 3.66 million barrels daily, or 3.7% of global oil demand. Read More

04.05.23- Did Oil Just Fool Everyone?
Greg Guenthner

A handful of key assets are on the verge of major moves this week.

Gold is on the cusp of a significant breakout above $2,000 as the US Dollar index drops. Any significant extension above the mythical $2K mark should attract a ton of attention from the mainstream financial media, lighting the fuse for an even bigger momentum move in the metal and the miners. Read More

04.04.23- New Ceramic Battery Could Replace Lithium-Ion Batteries
Brian Westenhaus

Scientists at Vienna University of Technology have invented a new oxygen ion battery chemistry based on ceramic materials. If it degrades, it can be regenerated, therefore it potentially has an extremely long lifespan. Also, it does not require any rare elements and it is incombustible. For large energy storage systems, this could be an optimal solution. Read More

Demand For Fuel Tankers Jumps Amid Global Trade Reshuffle
Tsvetana Paraskova

With global trade being upended by sanctions on Russia while Asia and the Middle East add refining capacity at the expense of the U.S. and Europe, orders for fuel tankers have soared so far this year to the highest in a decade.    

So far into 2023, a total of 38 mid-range fuel tankers have been ordered, the highest number since 2013, per data from shipbroker Braemar cited by Bloomberg. Read More

04.01.23- The Energy Transition
Is a Delusion Indeed

Benjamin Zycher

The “energy transition” continues to receive thunderous applause from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold. For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested in silliness: The “energy transition” is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive (Table 1b and here), reliable, and very clean given the proper policy environment, toward such unconventional energy technologies as wind and solar power. Read More

03.31.23- Oil Prices Set For A Weekly Gain As Traders Await New Inflation Data
Irina Slav

Crude oil may end the week with another gain on the back of disrupted supply from Iraq.

The disruption resulted from a dispute between Baghdad and the government of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, which exports some 400,000 bpd of crude via Turkey. Read More

03.30.23- Natural Gas: A Comprehensive Guide To The World's Most Crucial Fuel
Michael Kern

Natural gas is a fossil fuel that has been used for centuries to power homes, businesses, and industries. It is a clean-burning fuel that emits fewer greenhouse gases than other fossil fuels like coal and oil. In this article, we will explore what natural gas is, where it comes from, what it is used for, and why it is important.

What is Natural Gas? Read More

03.29.23- Tesla Fires First Shot In EV Price War
Irina Slav

Early this month, Tesla’s Elon Musk announced the company’s next-generation cars would cost half as much as current models. The bombastic statement was completely in character and did not exactly take the media world by storm, but it made its way into rivals’ headquarters and raised some hackles. Musk is notorious for setting his companies’ overambitious targets and then failing to hit them as planned. Yet Tesla did become a profitable company, and it continues to be consistently profitable, with its bestsellers in many markets. Chances are, however outrageous a statement by Musk is, his rivals would hear it and not ignore it. And maybe start arming themselves for the coming price war. Read More

03.28.23- Scientists Hack Early Stage Of Photosynthesis In Breakthrough For Biofuel
Alex Kimani

Last month, Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) pulled the plug on its 14-year-long algae biofuels project, becoming the last oil company to abandon what was once considered the fuel of the future.The whole idea was not without merit, though. Algae do have some clear advantages over other biofuel candidates, mainly because these photosynthetic microorganisms are super-efficient at converting sunlight into biomass; have high lipid content of up to 80% for some varieties and are more versatile than, say, corn, a common biofuel crop.  Read More

03.27.23- Why Japan Isn’t Tapping It's Incredible Geothermal Potential
Tsvetana Paraskova

Japan, a large energy importer where coal and gas make up two-thirds of electricity generation, has one abundant domestic renewable energy source that has remained untapped—geothermal energy.  

Geothermal resources in Japan, thought to be the world's third largest, could stay deep underground despite Japan's net-zero by 2050 pledge and the fact that it is still very much dependent on fossil fuels for a large part of its electricity consumption.  Read More

03.25.23- Latin America’s Bid To Challenge China’s Dominance In The Lithium Market
Michael Kern

The government of Bolivia has called on its neighbors, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, to work on setting a Latin America-wide policy on the exploitation of lithium. The idea is part of a broader initiative to form an OPEC-like cartel to collectively boost these countries' bargaining power. 

President Luis Are spoke in La Paz, saying, "We must be united in the market, in a sovereign manner, with prices that benefit our economies, and one of the ways, already proposed by (Mexico's) President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is to think of a kind of lithium OPEC." Read More

03.24.23- Energy Transition Advocates Get A Reality Check
Irina Slav

This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report. Unsurprisingly alarming, the report aimed to turn up the heat on governments, the business world, and every one of us to do more about the energy transition. Decarbonization, the report said, had to move faster and more dramatically. Yet that wasn’t the only document that made the headlines this week. Shell also released a report in which it detailed two different scenarios for the future to 2050. In those scenarios, the supermajor’s analysts pitted energy security against the energy transition – something the IPCC reports have never done. Read More

03.23.23- Oil Prices Under Pressure From Oversupply And Economic Uncertainty
Irina Slav

Crude oil prices moved lower today as the Federal Reserve signaled the U.S. economy is not yet out of the woods and the EIA reported yet another weekly build in crude oil stocks.

Although prices had inched up right after the Fed’s monetary policy meeting, which concluded with a decision for a 25-basis-point interest rate hike, they got pressured by comments made by chair Jerome Powell about credit risks in the banking system of the country. Read More

03.22.23- Lithium Prices Hit Hard
As EV Sales Stumble

Tyler Durden

The price of lithium has experienced a significant decline over recent months, resulting from a deceleration in electric vehicle sales and an increasing supply of the key ingredient used in battery packs. 

Since November, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in China has plunged from $84,500 per metric ton to $42,500, or about a 50% decline, according to Bloomberg.  Read More

03.21.23- The Evolution of Residential Energy Storage
Fortress Power

In the world of residential energy storage, what’s old is new again.

When solar energy for residential properties first became popular toward the end of the 20th century, an overwhelming majority of systems ran on batteries. 

But in the early 2000s, governmental policies including net metering, tax credits, and other local incentives de-emphasized the importance of batteries during solar installs. Read More

03.20.23- Can The Lithium Price Boom Be Compared To Oil’s Last Supercycle
Robert Rapier

There’s an old adage for commodities that says, “the cure for high prices is high prices.” The inverse is true as well. In fact, I often heard this phrase when I worked in the oil industry.

At the same time, I often heard people say “But this time is different. This time there is no easy cure.” I heard that in 2008 when oil prices first topped $100 a barrel. Many people were predicting $200 a barrel. But a funny thing happened. Those high oil prices caused a recession, which reduced demand, which reduced prices. Read More

03.18.23- The U.S. Is Racing To Revitalize Its Nuclear Industry
Felicity Bradstock

Unlike many other countries around the world, the U.S. has kept its nuclear power up and running, making it the biggest producer of nuclear power today. Nevertheless, after falling out of public favor, nuclear power was little talked about in previous decades, with many power plants going into debt and barely keeping afloat. At present, nuclear power provides around 20 percent of the electricity generated in the United States, and this is largely thanks to government grants helping power plants maintain operations. But now, as countries worldwide consider nuclear power once again, the U.S. is ramping up its investments in the low-carbon energy source in a bid to bring nuclear back from the brink and use it to support a green transition. Read More

03.17.23- The Real Reason Why Automakers Slashed EV Prices
Rystad Energy

The global electric vehicle (EV) market is reeling from one of the most dramatic collapses in monthly sales to date, with Rystad Energy research showing that only 672,000 units were sold in January, almost half of December 2022 sales and a mere 3% year-on-year increase over January 2022. The EV market share among all passenger car sales also tumbled to 14% in January, well down on the 23% seen in December. Read More

03.16.23- Global Oil Production Dropped
To a 7-Month Low In January

Tsvetana Paraskova

Crude oil production worldwide fell to a seven-month low in January, dragged down by lower output in major producers Canada, Iraq, Russia, and Bahrain, data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Thursday.

Global oil production declined by 365,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January, which was the third consecutive month of falling output, showed the JODI data shared by the Riyadh-based International Energy Forum (IEF). Read More

03.15.23- Oil Nosedives After SVB Collapse
Irina Slav

Last Friday, the banking regulator of California shut down Silicon Valley Bank and appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receiver of its assets.

The collapse tech and climate startup bank was quickly labeled the biggest bank failure since the 2008 crisis and the second-biggest in history. And as it fell, it took oil prices with it. Read More

03.14.23- America’s Grid Has A Multi-Trillion Dollar Problem
Leonard Hyman and William Tilles

Numbers are out again permitting us to update our US electric grid’s reliability report card. Last year, 2022, was nowhere near as bad as 2021–the worst year of the 24-year record. It was “only” the fourth worst year. Severe storms, fire, floods, snow, hurricanes — many often in the same places. Whether we call it weather or climate, utilities and other infrastructure providers face new challenges. The electric industry’s response to this increasing cycle of weather disruption followed by system repair is to basically reinforce the status quo with a reassuring, “Don’t worry, we’ll fix the grid better than before.” Read More

03.13.23- Can Double-Sided Solar Panels Help Meet Global Energy Demands?
Brian Westenhaus

University of Ottawa’s laboratory in photonics and renewable energy has developed a new method for measuring the solar energy produced by bifacial solar panels. The double-sided solar technology is expected to meet increased global energy demands into the future.

Published in the journal Joule, this study from the SUNLAB team in the Faculties of Engineering and Science proposes a characterization method that will improve the measurement of bifacial panels indoors by considering external effects of ground cover such as snow, grass and soil. This will provide a way to consistently test bifacial solar panel performance indoors that accurately represents how the panels will perform outdoors. Read More

03.11.23- Why Illinois Needs To Reconsider Its Total Moratorium On Nuclear Energy
Tyler Durden

Illinois relies on nuclear energy for over half of its electricity production. The plants producing that power are mostly old and scheduled to be mothballed by 2050.

But Illinois nevertheless maintains a decades-long, total moratorium on new nuclear power plant construction.

Illinois’ shortsightedness is exceeded by its hubris. Federal government safety standards for construction and operation of nuclear plants is extraordinarily strict. Read More

03.10.23- The U.S. Solar Industry Is Set To Rebound In 2023
Tsvetana Paraskova

The U.S. solar market is expected to recover this year from the policy-driven supply constraints which weighed on the sector in 2022, a new report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie showed on Thursday.

Last year, new solar capacity additions in the United States fell by 16% from 2021 for a total of 20.2 gigawatts (GW), according to the report U.S. Solar Market Insight 2022 Year in Review. Read More

03.09.23- When the Economy Gets Squeezed by Too Little Energy
Gail Tverberg

Most people have a simple, but wrong, idea about how the world economy will respond to “not enough energy to go around.” They expect that oil prices will rise. With these higher prices, producers will be able to extract more fossil fuels so the system can go on as before. They also believe that wind turbines, solar panels and other so-called renewables can be made with these fossil fuels, perhaps extending the life of the system further. Read More

03.08.23- Understanding Peak Oil: What It Is And Why It Matters
Michael Kern

This question has been on the minds of many experts in recent years. 

The answer lies in the concept of peak oil - the point at which global petroleum production reaches its maximum potential and begins to decline. Read More

03.07.23- The Six Weirdest Sources Of Energy: A Closer Look
Michael Kern

Renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly important as the world moves towards a more sustainable and green future. While solar, wind, and hydropower are some of the most well-known renewable energy sources, many unconventional and even weird energy sourcescould play a significant role in our transition to a greener future.

Here is a closer look at six of the weirdest sources of energy:Read More

03.06.23- Calls to ban gas stoves are anti-science, anti-freedom, and anti-energy
Alex Epstein

Calls to ban gas stoves are anti-science, anti-freedom, and anti-energy

Instead of informing us with accurate science about gas stoves so we can make better decisions, anti-fossil fuel activists are distorting science to justify forcing their anti-gas agenda on us.

  • Early 2023 has featured a carefully orchestrated campaign in which: Read More

03.04.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: We’ll Soon Find Out
James Howard Kunstler

The crown of America sits in a gutter begging someone to pick it up before the nation collapses— Auron MacIntyre, The Blaze

In an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier last Tuesday, FBI Director Chris Wray said, “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.” Like so much else in America’s tortured, distractible life these days, the meaning larded into that utterance went clear over the collective heads of just about everybody.Read More

03.03.23- Green Hydrogen Will Play A Critical Role In A Net-Zero Future
Michael Kern

The world is rapidly transitioning towards renewable energy sources in order to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. One of the most promising technologies in this regard is green hydrogen, which has the potential to revolutionize the energy industry.

What is Green Hydrogen? Read More

03.02.23- ‘New Fuels’ Take Over Commodity Markets Of The Future
Alex Kimani

The energy transition and the global energy crisis have triggered deep transformations within international energy trade. To wit, hydrogen and hydrogen-based products, including ammonia and synthetic fuels, are expected to gain the upper hand at the expense of fossil fuels including coal, oil and natural gas in the long-term. If governments across the globe adopt the Announced Pledges Scenarios set out in 2021, energy trade in 2050 will be roughly at current levels but the energy mix will be very different with hydrogen-based fuels and critical minerals gaining significant ground at the expense of oil products.  In the Net Zero Scenario, the value of energy trade would shrink while hydrogen and critical raw materials (CRM) such as rare earth elements, cobalt, lithium, nickel and copper will dominate. Read More

03.01.23- TAE makes world-first readings of magnetically-confined hydrogen-boron fusion
Loz Blain

Most current fusion power projects require tritium – an incredibly scarce and problematic fuel. TAE is targeting cheaper, safer hydrogen-boron (H-B) fusion, and it's just announced a world-first measurement of H-B fusion in magnetically confined plasma. Read More

02.28.23- Inflation Reduction Act: Opening Up Green Hydrogen Possibilities
Rystad Energy

If 2022 turbocharged the green hydrogen economy, then 2023 is the start of a long slog for this nascent sector that is set to be the backbone for decarbonization, transition and energy security strategies. Rystad Energy research has found that electrolyzer capacity is expected to grow by 186% from 2022 to 2023. Attention is therefore turning to the supply chain capacity necessary for electrolyzer production.  Read More

02.27.23- GE installs world's first spiral-welded wind turbine tower
Kurt Nimmo

Denver's Keystone Tower Systems says it can cut the cost of wind energy with tech borrowed from pipemaking. It uses spiral welding techniques to roll sheet steel into huge turbine towers on-site, stronger, faster and cheaper than current techniques. Read More

02.25.23- U.S. Oil Drilling Activity Retreats For Second Week In A Row
Julianne Geiger

The total number of total active drilling rigs in the United States fell by 7 this week, according to new data from Baker Hughes published on Friday.

The total rig count fell to 753 this week—103 rigs higher than the rig count this time in 2022 and 322 rigs lower than the rig count at the beginning of 2019, prior to the pandemic. Read More

02.24.23- Attacks On The U.S. Power Grid Are Surging
Michael Kern

The number of attacks with gunfire or vandalism on the U.S. power grid infrastructure surged last year and is likely to continue rising this year, too, a confidential analysis seen by The Wall Street Journal has shown.

Last year, the number of physical attacks – including intrusion, vandalism, and gunfire – jumped by 71% from 2021, according to the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or E-ISAC, a division of North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Read More

02.23.23- Could Gravity Batteries Win The Energy Storage War?
Felicity Bradstock

As renewable energy operations continue to expand worldwide, governments and energy companies are racing to develop battery storage capacity to ensure that people have access to clean energy at all hours of the day and night. The inconsistency of many renewable energy sources has made the need for battery storage greater than ever, which has spurred a huge amount of investment into new battery technologies around the globe. Now, gravity batteries may help us harness the power of wind and solar farms even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun’s not shining. Read More

02.22.23- Silver mirror triples efficiency of perovskite solar cells
Michael Irving

An artist's impression of a perovskite (cyan) solar cell with a new layer of material underneath (gray), which boosts efficiency by creating reflections of electron-hole pairs (red and blue)>>

Perovskites are one of the most promising new materials for solar cell technology. Now engineers at the University of Rochester have developed a new way to more than triple the material’s efficiency by adding a layer of reflective silver underneath it. Read More

02.21.23- Electric Vehicles Are Anti-Market and Anti-Environment
Daniel ?terbuleac

On the perfection of the free-market

While I was doing my biweekly commute I couldn’t help myself notice, from time to time, a stranded car leaning on the side of the road. It usually was an older (about twenty-year-old) German car, but sometimes newer cars also. Read More

02.20.23- And Now. for Something Entirely Different: The Offensive Begins Next Week
Vox Day

All of the signs are pointing to the Russian military transforming the Special Military Operation into a full-blown invasion of Ukraine next week. Simplicius goes into considerable detail about the mobilization and positioning of Russian forces and concludes that the invasion will be conducted on very different principles and will begin on the anniversary of the original operation.

Putin is now officially scheduled to give a big State of the Nation address on February 21st, which falls precisely on the anniversary of his pivotal Feb. 21, 2022 speech where he first announced the recognition of LPR/DPR’s independence, leading the way to the big Feb. 24 speech which announced the actual full military launch of the SMO invasion.  Read More

02.18.23- Surging Energy Prices Could Push 141 Million People Into Extreme Poverty
Tsvetana Paraskova

The surge in energy prices over the past year could push another 141 million people globally into extreme poverty, due to the cost-of-living crisis, a new study showed this week.

Total energy costs of households are set to jump by between 62.6% and 112.9%, contributing to a 2.7% to 4.8% increase in household expenditures, researchers said in the study published in the journal Nature Energy. Read More

02.17.23- Puerto Rico Has Big Plans For Renewables, But Can It Deliver?
Haley Zarremba

Puerto Rico’s electrical grid was already woefully under-invested in and poorly maintained when the category 4 Hurricane Maria crashed into the island in September, 2017. The fallout from the storm was enormous, with thousands of casualties and immeasurable damage to the island’s infrastructure. The power grid was almost completely destroyed. The devastation triggered the longest and most sweeping blackout in all of United States history, and the majority of the approximately 3,000 people who died from the storm didn’t die from the hurricane itself, but from issues relating to the lack of electricity powering hospitals and other essential services. Read More

02.16.23- Scientists Use Nano Carbons To Convert Methane Into Hydrogen
Brian Westenhaus

University of Surrey researchers have found that a type of metal-free catalysts could contribute to the development of cost-effective and sustainable hydrogen production technologies.

The results entitled ‘First-Principles Microkinetic Modeling Unraveling the Performance of Edge-Decorated Nanocarbons for Hydrogen Production from Methane’ have been published atACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Read More

02.15.23- The Next Leg Of The Space Race Is All About Solar Power
Haley Zaremba

One of the biggest problems facing solar energy is that it is variable. Solar production waxes and wanes according to variables well outside of human control. The amount of sunlight hitting a solar panel in a given day depends on the weather and the season. Further complicating the issue, the times of day when demand for energy is highest are often opposite of peak production hours. Solar panels are just clocked out when all of us get home and turn on our lights, start cooking, and our heating systems work harder to keep the house warm as the sun goes down. Read More

02.14.23- "Exceptional" new catalyst cheaply splits hydrogen from seawater
Loz Blain

The new catalyst splits seawater and generates hydrogen extremely efficiently in the lab, resisting corrosion and avoiding chlorine production. The research team says it'll be easy to manufacture at scale, and should be cheap enough at commercial scale to help green hydrogen compete with fossil fuels

Green hydrogen can't be viewed as environmentally friendly if it drinks huge amounts of fresh water, or results in the bulk output of toxic chlorine, according to RMIT researchers who say they've come up with a cheap technique that does neither.  Read More

02.13.23- The Future Is Bright
For Pink Hydrogen

Felicity Bradstock

Everyone’s been talking about green hydrogen as a potential gas and fuel replacement as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. But one alternative, pink hydrogen, produced using nuclear power, has been largely overlooked. Governments worldwide are once again discussing nuclear power, with plans to construct several new power plants around the globe. This is largely in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and resulting energy insecurity, which has demonstrated the world’s ongoing reliance on a few select powers for their oil and gas needs. Many countries are looking to become more self-sufficient when it comes to energy, with a wider array of renewable energy options now on the table. So, could pink hydrogen be one of the major power sources of the future?  Read More

02.11.23- Researchers Look To Turn Decommissioned Mines Into Batteries
Brian Westenhaus

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) has offered a new technique called Underground Gravity Energy Storage that turns decommissioned mines into long-term energy storage solutions.

Renewable energy sources are central to the energy transition toward a more sustainable future. However, as sources like sunshine and wind are inherently variable and inconsistent, finding ways to store energy in an accessible and efficient way is crucial. While there are many effective solutions for daily energy storage, the most common being batteries, a cost-effective long-term solution is still lacking. Read More

02.10.23- How inverter design contributes to long-term profitability of solar and storage
Larry Pearl

As the up-front costs of clean energy technologies continue to fall, attention is turning to lifetime system costs and how they affect the long-term profitability of large-scale distributed energy resources (DERs). Not surprisingly, these systems drive better financial returns by generating electricity reliably — day in and day out — without costly maintenance or failures. So, the question becomes, what system component is key to owning and operating a profitable system.  Read More

02.09.23- Small Modular Reactors
Struggle With Scalability

Leonard S. Hyman and William I. Tilles

Nuclear power is back in the headlines. Its proponents say, “We need renewables and nuclear. Maybe, though, not the same kind of nuclear as before. Maybe small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).” Three distinct achievements in modular nuclear reactors made the news recently. Read More

02.08.23- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: ChatGPT... The friendly face
of your AI replacement

This year may well be remembered as the moment the world woke up to the power, the potential and the world-inverting threat of artificial intelligence. OpenAI's humble, free-to-use chatbot has made it clear: life will never be the same after ChatGPT.

We are witnessing a revolution. After the stunning debut of OpenAI's Dall-E 2 image generatorlast year, the company opened its natural language generator up to the public at the end of November last year. Since then, it's spread like wildfire, amassing more than 100 million users in its first two months, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history and the buzzword of the year. Read More

02.07.23- Tidal Energy To See
Major Expansion This Decade

Felicity Bradstock

Energy companies and governments are picking up the pace of the development of tidal energy operations in 2023, as countries worldwide look to diversify the renewables mix in a response to growing energy insecurity. Tidal power, a long-neglected green energy option, has finally gained greater traction in recent years, as governments look for innovative ways to meet their climate targets over the coming decades. This year, several countries have big plans for new tidal power projects, which will see the world’s tidal energy capacity grow significantly. Read More

02.06.23- South Australia plans world's largest electrolyzer and H2 power plant
Loz Blain

Outstanding renewable energy potential and some lever early moves have positioned South Australia as one of the world's leading renewable energy regions – now it's planning a hydrogen-powered energy storage moonshot

The state that built the world's first grid-level "big battery" is striking out on an even more ambitious green energy project: the world's biggest hydrogen power station, fed by an electrolysis facility 10 times larger than anything running today. Read More

02.04.23- Nuclear Power Is Entering A New Era
Haley Zaremba

The global energy crisis is putting an unprecedented squeeze on the nuclear power industry. The urgent need to shore up energy security in the context of the Russian war in Ukraine has convalesced with the equally urgent need to decarbonize the global energy mix as the line of no return for catastrophic climate change grows ever closer. For many countries, this has meant that public and private sector leaders have been forced to reconsider their attitudes toward nuclear energy, a proven emissions-free technology capable of producing a whole lot of energy reliably and consistently. Read More

02.03.23- Multi-layer "liquid window" tech could help buildings save energy
Ben Coxworth

There are already "smart" windows that can be electronically switched between either letting sunlight through or blocking it. A new multi-layered one, however, can be set to severalenergy-saving light filtration modes.

By adjusting the opacity of the glass on existing photochromic windows, users can control how much sunlight passes through the window and into the room. In most cases, the glass partially blocks the sunlight's visible spectrum – keeping the room from getting too bright – along with its infrared spectrum, keeping the room from getting too warm. Read More

02.02.23- Acid coating converts regular electrolyzers to split seawater
Loz Blain

Green hydrogen is going to demand a lot of water for electrolysis – nine liters of pure water for every kilogram of hydrogen. Researchers say they've found a simple way to use seawater in standard electrolyzers, and that's big news for clean energy. Read More

02.01.23- China’s Low Aluminum Production Worsens Supply Chain Challenges
Jennifer Kary

As with many base metals, aluminum prices rose at the beginning of January. While it is true that China raising aluminum export taxes could have impacted aluminum prices, the market has witnessed somewhat volatile conditions since late September of 2022. And though prices are nowhere near their March 2022 historic rally levels, they still remain at historic highs. Read More

01.31.23- Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Are A Game Changer For Clean Power
Haley Zaremba

For years, small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) have been teased as the next big thing in clean energy. They were promised to be the solution to safely and efficiently scaling nuclear energy and the catalyst that would bring the nuclear energy renaissance into full swing. But then they never arrived. Read More

01.30.23- Are You Really Against Fossil Fuels? Read This Before You Answer
Vijay Jayaraj

It is easy for anyone to say that they are against fossil fuels. Opposition to coal, oil and natural gas is fashionable and will prompt heads to nod and even hands to applaud in most places. 

But are people aware of the extent to which their lives are dependent on fossil fuels? Do they know that more than 90 percent of things used in their everyday lives are derived from fossil fuels? Read More

01.28.23- Sodium-Ion Batteries Just Got More Competitive
Brian Westenhaus

Pusan National University researchers have invented a new sodium ion anode material. They are using a recently developed pyrolyzed quinacridones, new carbonaceous anode materials, that are efficient, easily prepared, and exhibit excellent electrochemical properties, including high sodium-ion storage performance and cycling stability.

Their study paper was made available online on October of 2022 and will be published in Volume 453, Part 1 of the Chemical Engineering Journal on 1 February 2023. Read More

01.27.23- Will Geothermal Energy
Ever Become Scalable?

Haley Zaremba

The most cutting-edge approach for saving the planet from climate disaster doesn’t sound like it’s ripped out of the pages of science fiction. In fact, it doesn’t even sound like it’s ripped from the headlines. Far from new but nonetheless noteworthy, the ancient energy technology of using heat from the Earth’s core is finally ready for its close-up. While geothermal energy is already used around the world in relatively small-scale operations, scientists are working on scaling what could potentially be a clean, abundant, and cost-effective form of energy production suitable for almost anywhere on the planet. Read More

01.26.23- How Environmental Fear-mongering Derailed The Nuclear Energy Boom
Felicity Bradstock

Despite high hopes for nuclear power several decades ago, when the development of many large-scale nuclear plants was underway and numerous projects were already up and running, we are living far from the dream once envisioned by nuclear scientists, who were hoping to deliver vast amounts of clean energy to the world and offer a replacement for fossil fuels. Nuclear energy once presented the idea of a fossil fuel-free future, with power plants providing abundant clean energy to populations around the world. However, following a few prolific nuclear disasters, the world quickly turned its back on nuclear, and environmentalists worldwide made sure we never forgot about the high risks involved with nuclear power. Now, as several countries are putting nuclear power back on the agenda, many are questioning whether this fearmongering was really justified, given the major risks involved with continuing fossil fuel operations. Read More

01.25.23- The Energy Crisis Is Fueling A Nuclear Energy Renaissance
Haley Zaremba

Is this the dawn of a new nuclear era? Across the world, there are rumblings of a new push for nuclear as a solution to decarbonizing global energy production, even from environmentalist groups, representing a stark turnaround for many. Even the most anti-nuclear countries, such as Germany and Japan, have been extending the lives of their existing nuclear plants, flying in the face of their previous pledges to phase out the divisive technology altogether. While nuclear power never died in some key economies, such as China and Russia, more influential world leaders in the West are now getting on board, signaling a potential sea change for the nuclear power industry.  Read More

01.24.23- U.S. Gasoline Prices
Continue To Climb

Julianne Geiger

Gasoline prices continue to climb for the fourth straight week, rising 32.7 cents over the last month as crude oil prices rise, data from AAA showed on Monday.

Gasoline prices are up 11.8 cents over a week ago, and are 9.4 cents higher than they were a year ago, before Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Read More

01.23.23- The Road To Decarbonization: Ammonia-Powered Trucks Take the Lead
Haley Zaremba

This week, the world’s first ammonia-powered, zero-emissions semi truck was unveiled, potentially signaling the dawn of a new era for the shipping and transportation industry. Like Tesla’s semi truck, Brooklyn company Amogy’s ammonia-powered truck holds about 900 kWh of energy. Unlike the Tesla semi, it takes just about eight minutes to refuel. And, according to Amogy, their new model has five times the system-level energy density of batteries. Read More

01.21.23- SpaceX Rocket Sends Solar Power Prototype Into Orbit
Brian Westenhaus

The Caltech Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) prototype launched into orbit, dubbed the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD), will test several key components of an ambitious plan to harvest solar power in space and beam the energy back to Earth.

Space solar power provides a way to tap into the practically unlimited supply of solar energy in outer space, where the energy is constantly available without being subjected to the cycles of day and night, seasons, and cloud cover.

For more lots more images, gifs and video, here are the links: 1st, Cal Tech’s press release.Then 2nd, the project web site. Read More

01.20.23- How Significant Was The Latest Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough?
Robert Rapier

Last month the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California announced a significant breakthrough in nuclear fusion research. Since then, a number of people have asked me what this breakthrough really means.

First, let’s discuss some basics of nuclear fusion. Today’s nuclear power plants are based on nuclear fission, which is the splitting of a heavy isotope like uranium-235 into two smaller isotopes. (Isotopes are just different forms of an element). Read More

01.19.23- Fur-lined double-barrel generator harvests energy from slow waves
Loz Blain

Magnets hold the inner cylinder in place, stopping it from rotating until it reaches the peak of a wave, where it can be released to create the maximum triboelectric effect

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed an unusual way to harvest wave power, with a gently rolling cylinder designed around the triboelectric effect that causes static shocks after you walk on certain carpets. Read More

01.18.23- IEA: Half Of All Cars Sold In Top Markets Will Be Electric By 2030
Michael Kern

Every other car sold in 2030 in the three largest EV markets – China, Europe, and the United States – will be an electric vehicle, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

In 2030, every second car sold in Europe, the US, and China, the three largest car markets for electric cars, will be an electric car, the IEA’s Executive Director Fatih Birol said on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Read More

01.17.23- Dung-powered tractor drives down agricultural emissions
Loz Blain

New Holland Agriculture has announced a new tractor designed to run on fuel created on-site using cow manure. The T7 Methane Power LNG offers the same power and torque as a diesel tractor, but it's part of a system that can greatly reduce emissions. 

The system, upon which New Holland has partnered with UK company Bennamann, works roughly like this: farmers collect as much cow poop as possible as a slurry, and instead of directly using it as fertilizer, they pump it into large tanks, or covered lagoons. Anaerobic organisms chow down on this lumpy thickshake, and produce a biogas that contains mainly methane. Read More

01.16.23- Biofuel Production Is Set To Soar
In The U.S.

Haley Zaremba

What makes an energy source renewable? This question has been at the center of numerous debates in recent months as government agencies around the world rewrite their energy policies in the wake of the massive energy sector shakeup brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic and pushed into overdrive by Russia’s war in Ukraine. We are currently living through a “global energy crisis of unprecedented depth and complexity,” according to the recently released World Energy Outlook 2022, an annual flagship report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). According to the IEA’s analysis, “there is no going back to the way things were.” Read More

01.14.23- Where Are Oil Prices Heading In 2023?
Tsvetana Paraskova

At the beginning of 2023, several factors are at play in determining the short and medium-term trend in oil prices this year. Supply and demand concerns, tightening monetary policy globally, expectations of a material slowdown in economic growth and possible recessions, and China’s reopening with a Covid exit wave are all impacting crude oil prices.  Read More

01.13.23- Why Oil's 7-Month Downturn May Be About To Reverse
Tyler Durden

As OilPrice's Alex Kimani writes, oil prices have kicked off the new year on the back foot, tumbling to large losses in the first week before staging a modest recovery in the second as demand uncertainty continues to weigh on trading. Concerns over the rapid expansion of China’s COVID cases, following the relaxation of strict zero-COVID policies have continued to weigh heavily on oil prices. Read More

01.12.23- Concentrated photosynthesis device promises cheap green hydrogen
Loz Blain

UMich researchers have demonstrated an artificial photosynthesis device 10 times more efficient and one hundredth the size of previous devices of its kind. This green hydrogen production method also improves over time, and can split seawater. Read More

01.11.23- World's new largest wind turbine sweeps 10 football fields per spin
Loz Blain

The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) is upping the ante on offshore wind, announcing it's building the largest and most powerful wind turbine ever, making a peak 18 megawatts with an enormous 260-meter (853-ft) diameter on its three-bladed rotor.

It makes sense for a shipbuilding enterprise to get involved with this project; the blades of much smaller turbines are already a huge pain to transport, so building them right next to a dock in a facility designed for making, handling and launching enormous structures into the water eliminates a ton of problems as you attempt to go bigger. Read More

01.10.23- Form Energy's ultra-cheap
iron-air batteries to get $760M factory

Loz Blain

Boston's Form Energy says its iron-air battery systems will provide hundred hour-plus grid-scale energy storage at a tenth the price of lithium "big battery" installations

One of the most exciting companies in grid-level renewable energy storage – if you're the type to get excited about this kind of thing – is Form Energy, whose innovative iron-air technology promises to outperform lithium "big battery" projects at 10% of the cost. It's preparing to scale up with its first factory. Read More

01.09.23- The LNG Boom Could End With Billions In Stranded Assets
Irina Slav

A few years ago, the notion that the United States could become the largest LNG exporter in the world would have sounded fantastical. And yet last year, it did just that: the U.S. exported as much liquefied natural gas as Qatar in 2022, at over 81 billion cu m. And it’s going to export more this year. But the boom may end sooner than many expect. Most of the gas liquefied at Gulf of Mexico terminals last year went to Europe, which was blown off its course towards a fossil fuel-free future by the war in Ukraine and its own reaction to the Russian invasion, which took the form of sanctions that prompted an unsurprising response from Moscow in the form of lower gas deliveries. Read More

01.07.23- Andurand: Oil Prices Could Exceed $140 If China's Economy Fully Reopens
Julianne Geiger

Crude oil prices could exceed $140 per barrel yet this year if China’s economy fully reopens, hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand said on Friday.

Andurand sees the possibility of crude oil demand growing by more than 4 million barrels per day this year—a 4% increase over last year. This far exceeds crude demand growth set out for 2023 by other oil market forecasters. Read More

01.06.23- What Would It Take To Completely Decarbonize Jet Fuel?
Brian Westenhaus

Arizona State University research shows a pathway toward full decarbonization of U.S. aviation fuel use by substituting conventional jet fuel with sustainably produced biofuels. The study found that planting the grass miscanthus on 23.2 million hectares of existing marginal agricultural lands – land that often lays fallow or is poor in soil quality – across the United States would provide enough biomass feedstock to meet the liquid fuel demands of the U.S. aviation sector fully from biofuels, an amount expected to reach 30 billion gallons/year by 2040.Everyday, 45,000 planes fly across the United States, carrying some 1.7 million passengers. Aviation dominates a frequent traveler’s individual contribution to climate change, and yet is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize. Read More

01.05.23- Hong Kong Scientists Unveil Two New Hydrogen Production Catalysts
Brian Westenhaus

City University of Hong Kong researchers have announced two new hydrogen production catalysts based on mineral gel and ‘crystalline-amorphous’ dual-phase nano-aluminum alloy.

In the first topic the researchers’ findings have been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications under the title “Two-dimensional mineral hydrogel-derived single atoms-anchored heterostructures for ultrastable hydrogen evolution”. The first author of the paper is Dr Lyu Fucong from CityU. The corresponding authors are Professor Lu, Dr Li Yangyang, Associate Professor in MSE, and Dr Sun Ligang, Assistant Professor in the School of Science at the Harbin Institute of Technology. Read More

01.04.23- Renewable Energy Jobs On The Rise
Felicity Bradstock

In 2021, global renewable energy jobs reached 12.7 million in a trend that’s set to continue. Despite fears of a severe decrease in fossil fuel jobs worldwide, as we transition to renewable energy, the good news is that opportunities in green energy increasing rapidly.  The number of jobs in renewable energy grew by around 700,000 globally between 2020 and 2021, according to the Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2022 by IRENA and the ILO. Read More

01.03.23- Will Big Plans For Nuclear Power Work Without Russian Uranium?
Felicity Bradstock

Many world powers have sped-up plans to introduce new nuclear power plants in a bid to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and decarbonise. Due to the high energy demand, many countries around the globe view renewable energy as insufficient in the mid-term to provide enough energy to meet the needs of the growing world population. However, nuclear power could provide a low-carbon alternative, offering abundant energy and low emissions. Read More

01.02.23- The Fall Of Tesla And The Rise of Exxon Amid The Energy Crisis
Alex Kimani

Growth stocks have been thoroughly hammered this year, with high inflation and rising interest rates pinching growth equities of all stripes. But few stocks exemplify the dramatic shake-up at the top, like leading EV maker Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA). TSLA stock has tanked 69.5% in the year-to-date, wiping off a staggering $877 billion from its market cap. In comparison, the S&P 500 has declined a more modest 19.7% over the timeframe. Read More

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