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The Economist writes, the UK secretary of state for energy, Ed Miliband, says renewable energy is “desirable, because it can lead to cheaper, more secure electricity.” But there is little evidence renewables are making electricity cheaper. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), British industry pays the most for its electricity than in any rich nations, often by an astonishing margin. Prices are 50-100% higher than in most of continental Europe and more than three times those in America. British households also face painful tariffs. Although they benefit from a regulatory cap on energy prices, this is adjusted quarterly. On Feb 25th Ofgem, the energy regulator, announced the latest increase, a whopping 6.4%, to take effect in April. Electricity in Britain is expensive because gas-fired generation sets the price. Despite increasing capacity, renewable sources cannot provide a steady supply of power all the time. Wind turbines stop turning on calm days; solar panels provide little electricity when it is cloudy and none at all at night. So Britain still depends on gas—as well as on nuclear, which provide baseload power for the rest. As a result, the overall price of electricity needs to be high enough to keep gas units in business. Since gas prices have doubled in the past year, that means dearer electricity. Most other countries use the same system, known as marginal pricing. But it affects the UK disproportionately because the nation almost always needs some gas-powered electricity, even though it is meeting a declining share of demand. Research found that gas sets the price of electricity 98% of the time in Britain, compared with a European average of 58%. This affects the wider economy. British steelmakers pay $48 million more for electricity each year than they would if they faced the same prices as their German competitors. Energy-intensive manufacturing is affected most, but hospitals, supermarkets, airports and offices all guzzle lots of power. As for consumers, in 2021 the average household spent 3.5% of its disposable income on utilities, including gas for heating and cooking as well as electricity; today that figure is around 5%. In England, 13% of households are below the poverty line and live in homes that are hard to keep warm. The most obvious solution would be to increase the amount of time Britain can manage without recourse to gas-fueled electricity. This would mean a cheaper form of electricity would determine the price more of the time. But it would require lots more investment in renewables. Though gov’t efforts to speed up approval for solar parks and onshore wind farms are encouraging, sufficient extra supply is unlikely to come on stream quickly. So British electricity bills look set to remain eye-watering until either gas prices fall sharply or storage improves. This will make the government’s desire for stronger economic growth all the harder to fulfil. 🇬🇧 💨🔆⚡👀 #UK #electricity #renewables

Bloomberg writes, tthe lopsidedness of Australia’s fossil fuel endowment and demographic spread, coupled with insufficient infrastructure, means one of the world’s biggest exporters of LNG will soon have to import the fuel. Eastern Australia is facing an energy shortfall as older offshore gas fields are depleted, according to Rystad Energy. There’s limited pipeline capacity to ship LNG thousands of miles from major production hubs in the northwest of the country, and the grid operator has repeatedly warned of potential shortages in the populous southeast as soon as 2027. New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania are already “testing their gas supply security for winter,” Kaushal Ramesh, said Rystad. That risks a repeat of an energy crunch three years ago, he said. “Compared to the crisis year of 2022, these states now have severely diminished buffer capacity, which could trigger another price surge if multiple supply and demand shocks occur,” Ramesh said. “Even in our most optimistic scenario, LNG imports to Australia are looking like an inevitability.” Energy policy is likely to take center stage in elections due by mid-May, where the ruling Labor party’s target to generate 82% of electricity from renewables will face off against the opposition’s pledge to build nuclear reactors. The Victorian gov't will push for the Australian Energy Market Operator to become an anchor buyer of LNG at a meeting of state and federal energy ministers later this week. Companies including billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy, Viva Energy Australia and Royal Vopak NV have proposed LNG import terminals. Australia would not be the first gas exporter that would need to turn to imports, although countries including Egypt and Indonesia have mainly needed to do so to meet increasing domestic demand caused by rapid population growth. “It is ridiculous that one of the world’s largest gas exporters is looking to import gas,” said Saul Kavonic, an energy analyst at MST Marquee. “There is still ample gas in Queensland, where the LNG export projects are, but pipeline and storage constraints can still limit gas capacity in the southern states when it is suddenly needed.” 🇦🇺 👀 #australia ##oilandgas #LNG

The FT writes, US energy secretary Chris Wright says the US shale sector can boost oil production even if prices hit $50 a barrel. The former CEO of pressure pumper Liberty Energy told the FT the US sector could “absolutely” deliver both lower prices and higher production by “innovating” and driving “efficiency gains.” But he predicted a period of industry disruption ahead, similar to that experienced by the shale sector during a bruising price war between OPEC producers and the shale industry in 2014. “There were a lot of bankruptcies. There was a lot of disruption, but the end result was far lower costs to produce a barrel of oil,” he said. “We are going to see those same kind of market dynamics now. New supply is going to drive prices down. Companies are going to innovate, drive their prices down and consumers and suppliers will bounce back and forth.” Wright said he was “pro-consumer” rather than “pro-business” and supported the president’s efforts to drive down energy prices. His comments follow a steep decline in oil prices, with Brent crude falling to less than $70 for only the third time since before Russia’s 2022 full invasion of Ukraine. The unexpected decision by Opec+ to increase production, just as fears grow over the health of the US economy due to Trump’s tariff policies, have raised concerns about a possible oil glut. Oil markets were jolted further when Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to Trump, suggested if oil fell to $50 a barrel it would help tame inflation. Trump has not given a specific dollar figure on where he wants oil prices to land, but during his campaign he repeatedly said he would slash energy costs in half within 12 months. Andrew Gillick, a managing director at Enverus, said he was not sure the Trump admin fully appreciated what $50 a barrel oil would do to the US energy industry. “Operators had most likely planned for prices to be over $70 this year, so at $50, rigs would likely drop and activity slow. And when the rigs drop in the Permian you lose the associated gas that the LNG industry is counting on at the end of the year,” he said. Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning energy historian said that “at $50 a barrel the economics of shale don’t work.” The average break-even price for shale in 2010 was $77 a barrel of WTI compared with $45 in 2025, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights. Wright said he hoped the goal in the Paris Agreement for the world to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 was now dead. “Believing that we will have a re-transformed energy system in 2050 is pure fantasy. The problem is it’s been destructive fantasy,” he said. Wright said Germany and the UK’s pursuit of green policies made their electricity systems expensive and unreliable, which had resulted in certain industries relocating to Asia and the US. “Our priorities are focused on humans, lives, job opportunities. We’re not focused on climate,” he said. 🛢️💲🤔 #oilandgas #shaleoil #crudeoil

The NYT writes, in a hotel a block from the White House, energy ministers and tech founders from across Africa gathered to discuss how best to bring electricity to more than 600 million people on the continent who have none. Chris Wright, the new admin's energy secretary, took the stage and gave an impassioned speech on how concerns over climate change should not prevent Africa from charging ahead with fossil fuel development. "This government has no desire to tell you what you should do with your energy system," he said. "It's a paternalistic post-colonial attitude that I just can't stand." His remarks came just weeks after the admin shuttered Power Africa, which had financed tens of millions of electricity connections since its start under Obama in 2013. Africa, like the rest of the world, faces a choice—exploit fossil fuels that contribute to global warming, or forge a new path with renewable energy. Wright said Africa simply needed more energy of all kinds, including and even especially coal. While Wright said climate change was a “real, physical phenomenon" he said it wouldn't make a list of his top 10 problems facing the world. Wright's appearance was met with roaring approval. His remarks were in line with what many African energy developers have been urging for years. They say the persistence of energy poverty is a blight on the continent's development, and Western skittishness to invest in energy projects, whether because of concerns over governance or greenhouse gas emissions, is akin to keeping Africa down. Africa's population is growing faster than current electrification rates. Officials often buck at the suggestion they should opt for clean-energy to help fight climate change, instead of using their own abundant supplies of fossil fuels, given that their countries have contributed nearly nothing historically to the emissions that cause global warming. Other countries used fossil fuels for generations to build prosperity, the argument goes, so why shouldn't they? Other US officials speaking at the summit said that, with Trump in office, the days of shying away from fossil fuel investment in favor of renewables were over. "When we say "all of the above; you might ask, is that code for carbon? And yes, it is code for carbon," said Troy Fitrell, a senior State Dep't official and former ambassador to Guinea. "There are no restrictions anymore on what kind of energy we can promote." Wright's remarks left major questions unanswered and did not detail how much or where the US gov't would invest in African energy access. What he did offer was a pro-Africa message at a time when his boss has unnerved Africans. "The biggest question is whether the US can be a credible partner when we've just dismantled our main mechanism for investing in African energy" said Katie Auth, the former deputy director of Power Africa. 🌍⚡👀 #energy #africa #electricity

The FT writes, Trump's suspension of offshore wind development permits has delivered the fatal blow to an industry struggling with high costs, jeopardizing the US's power supplies and decarbonization plans. More than 90% of the country's planned offshore wind projects, 60+ GW, are at “serious risk", says Rystad Energy. While Britain, for instance, has offshore wind capacity of 14GW, the US has less than 0.2 GW. And unlike other renewable energy sources, the US sector relies on the federal gov’t for permit approvals. "[Trump] accelerated the death of the industry," said Artem Abramov of Rystad. On his first day in office, he paused leases and permits for offshore wind and ordered reviews of approved projects. His re-election has sent a chill across the industry, prompting leading developers to reduce or halt their US ventures. Last week, Vineyard Offshore, a US developer backed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, eliminated 50 jobs, citing “recent market uncertainties." The US offshore wind sector has also been pummeled by more than two years of high interest rates and inflation, prompting developers to cancel and renegotiate contracts. Ørsted, the largest wind developer, called its projects in the US the “most painful" part of its portfolio in 2023. Shell last month exited the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind project, the only federally approved project in NJ, taking an almost $1bn write-off days after Trump posted that "hopefully the project is dead and gone." TotalEnergies says it’s was “not worth" pursuing US offshore wind projects for the next four years. Developers said Trump's pause sends a negative signal. More than $40bn has been invested in the US offshore wind sector, according to Oceantic Network. BloombergNEF reckons European companies back more than half of advanced US offshore wind projects. Even with subsidies, offshore wind is one of the most expensive sources of US electricity. And several exec note that economics, not policy, were behind decisions to shelve plans or prioritize other sources. "We think we were probably not the best builder of offshore wind," said Brian Savoy, CFO at Duke Energy Corporation, which secured a lease off North Carolina's coast in a 2022 auction. Progress on the lease has been minimal, and Savoy said the company needed “clarity" before launching the project. Patricia Poppe, CEO of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the country's largest utility, said the company had “no plans" to build offshore wind projects, saying “there's lower cost means of serving our customers' demand." Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova, the country's largest manufacturer of wind turbines, said, "We've been very clear for quite a given time that we're not taking new offshore wind orders until they're with materially different economics than the economics that we see today." 💨 ⚡ 👀 #renewables #offshorewind #windenergy

The WSJ writes, a federal clean-energy program fueled by hundreds of billions of dollars during the Biden admin has lost about one-fourth of its staff as part of Trump's program to reduce employees across the gov’t. Roughly 60 employees, including probationary employees hired in the past few years, have resigned since Trump took office or were fired last week at the Energy Dept's Loan Programs Office (LPO). The office, which provides cheap funds to clean-energy projects, had more than doubled its staff to about 250 and amassed a $400B war chest as part of the 2022 IRA. More cuts are likely to come as the Trump admin's return-to-work policy kicks in. Some estimate the subsequent moves could trim the staff by 50%. Some fear the Trump admin will additionally take aim at the LPO’s independent contractors, a move that would likely limit its ability to dole out cheap cash to clean-energy projects. The cuts to the LPO are the latest sign of Trump's plans to pull funds from clean energy to focus more on boosting fossil fuels. The Trump admin has said it is pursuing a policy of "energy dominance" to lower prices at the pump and inflation more broadly. Last week, the White House launched the National Energy Dominance Council to coordinate increased production of energy resources. Lee Zeldin, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a member of the council, posted Friday on X, “I will do everything in my power @EPA to urgently help America unleash energy dominance." Critics say the admin is focusing on fossil fuels to the detriment of clean energy such as solar and wind and that cuts to programs such as the Energy Department's LPO threaten to slow US energy capacity. “Laying off staff in crucial industrial areas like carbon capture, nuclear and geothermal power, and electricity grid resiliency is weakening America's efforts to be energy independent and is handing these high-growth future industries over to China," said Peter Davidson, CEO of Aligned Climate Capital , who ran the LPO during the Obama admin. The LPO accelerated its activity during the final months of the Biden admin amid concerns loan commitments would end up in limbo in a Trump admin. Environmentalists fear Trump's Energy secretary, Chris Wright, could upend clean-energy funding by the department. Proponents of the LPO point out the program's default rate of 3% is comparable to the performance of loan portfolios of commercial banks. It remains unclear whether Trump's energy officials will implement loan agreements that remain subject to their oversight. In Dec, the office agreed to provide a $15B commitment to Pacific Gas and Electric Company to support hundreds of projects aimed at fighting the effects of climate change and improving the electrical grid. Other projects approved during the final weeks of the Biden admin include a $6.6B commitment for EV startup Rivian to help fund a plant in Georgia. ♻️💲👀 #energy #capitalmarkets #cleantech

Bloomberg writes, India is unlikely to raise its targets for combating carbon emissions after developed nations failed to meet its demands for more financial aid at last year's COP29 climate summit. The gov't doesn't plan to submit an updated version of its climate targets known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement for several more months as the document is still in the works. Today is the official deadline for countries to submit their NDCs to the United Nations. At the COP29 summit in Baku, rich nations agreed to triple the amount of funding available for developing nations to transition to green energy and adapt to a warmer planet to $300 billion a year through 2035. Indian negotiator Chandni Raina's outrage at the sum, which she called "paltry" and “not something that will enable conducive climate action," went viral for encapsulating the unhappiness many poor, climate-vulnerable nations had with the meeting's outcome. Experts say trillions will be needed to help developing nations cope with global warming. In its updated NDC, India will focus on measures to adapt to more extreme weather and building resilience. India, the world's third largest emitted after China and the US, is betting on future clean energy to help meet the needs of a growing and increasingly wealthy population. But the nation still relies mainly on fossil fuels, with renewables accounting for only about 2% of its total energy mix. Its current pledge under the Paris Agreement involves reducing emission intensity—the amount of carbon generated per unit of GDP—45% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. Over the same period, India aims to generate half of its power needs from non-fossil fuel sources and plant trees able to capture the equivalent of up to 3 billion tons of CO2. That's well below the 68% reduction analysts at Climate Action Tracker say is needed over the period to maintain a pathway to 1.5C degrees of warming. India plans to become carbon-neutral by 2070, a later date than other major emitters. Since announcing the goal in 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that reaching it was conditional on the availability of international finance, with a report calculating that the transition would require $12.4 trillion in foreign investments. 🇮🇳 🌍 🌡️ 👀 #climatechange #globalwarming #india

The FT writes, the EU, Australia, South Africa and India are among a host of big emitters expected to miss a UN deadline for new climate targets, coming up against economic constraints and political pressure following Trump’s election. Under the process started by the Paris agreement in 2015, almost 200 countries are due to submit fresh climate plans to the UN by early next week. The plans are meant to include a specific country-specific headline figures for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. Many countries are already far off track for the 2030 targets they had set, with emissions still rising despite scientists warning that to limit global warming they must fall by almost half by the end of the decade from 2019 levels. Many of the world's biggest economies are expected to miss the deadline. The order by Trump to withdraw from the Paris agreement to limit global warming to well below 2C and preferably 1.5C has undermined climate action. Although there is no penalty for the failure to meet the Feb 10 deadline set under a UN work program, it will deepen concerns about backtracking on climate action globally. EU officials say the bloc will be late submitting its plan, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC), amid concerns that its ambitious green agenda will test its economy. Rising political strains over EU sustainability rules have also caused a delay in setting an interim emissions target for 2040, from which the 2035 figure will be drawn. Poland, which holds the rotating chair of the EU presidency, is one of the gov'ts most skeptical of climate targets and is unlikely to push the agenda ahead of presidential elections in May. "The quality matters more than the speed of submission," one European official said. The EU submits one overarching NDC for all countries within the bloc. Officials in Mexico—where a new gov't led by climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum came to power last year said it would seek to submit its target around mid-year. South Africa said it aimed to have a new climate plan by around September. People familiar with discussions said India's NDC was not expected by the deadline, while China was still assessing geopolitical developments after the Trump election. Meanwhile, Indonesia's energy minister has questioned the usefulness of the Paris agreement following the US exit. Argentine officials are also weighing a proposal to quit the Paris accord. 🌍🌡️♻️ 👀 #climatechange #globalwarming #netzero

The FT writes, Equinor, renamed from Statoil in 2018, is planning to increase production of fossil fuels and halve its spending on renewables, with CEO Anders Opedal saying it was aiming to "create shareholder value for decades to come." Under its new targets, the company plans to produce 2.2MMBpde by 2030, 10% higher than previous expectations. It also lowered its target for renewables capacity to 10-12GW from a previous target of 12-16GW. Investment in renewables and other low-carbon technology between 2025 and 2027 will be cut to $5bn, down from about $10bn previously, excluding project financing. Opedal said the company's overall strategic direction had not changed and it still aimed to reach "net-zero" emissions by 2050. "We continue to reduce emissions from our production and build profitable business in renewables and low-carbon solutions." Equinor's move comes after Shell and bp diluted plans to diversify away from fossil fuels under pressure from shareholders to keep providing oil- and-gas-level returns. Analysts expect BP to drop or scale back its target for renewable capacity by 2030 at an investor day this month. Vitol, the world's largest independent energy trader, said this week that global demand for oil would not fall until at least 2040. Equinor's announcement comes after it said in October it was buying a near 10% stake in the world's largest offshore wind developer Ørsted. That move will bring Equinor closer to its renewables targets for less money than it would cost to develop the capacity from scratch by itself. Separately, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said it was “not worth" pursuing offshore wind projects in the US for the next four years because they have “little chance of being authorised" due to Trump's opposition. Total put a planned wind farm off the coast of New York and New Jersey on hold in November but Pouyanné said the group would return to the project at a later date. Despite this, the CEO said Total would still invest in renewables in the US and that he expected projects reliant on backing from US states, rather than the federal government, would continue. To Sum It Up: The Norwegian state-backed energy group that dropped oil from its name as part of a push into renewables is pivoting back to fossil fuels in the hunt for shareholder returns. Our Take 1: For those who want to pretend there's nothing to this news, we'd challenge them to go back seven years and examine what the expectations were seven years ago when Statoil changed its name and committed to the green cause. We'd wager this kind of walk back was never imagined. Our Take 2: Real-world wants and needs of eight billion people are always going to dictate the direction both economic and political organizations—regardless of all of thinking and hoping to the contrary. Count on it. 🛢️ ♻️ 👀 #norway #renewables #energytransition

The Time UK writes, claims by UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves that sustainable aviation fuels are a "game-changer" for the environmental impact of a third runway at Heathrow have been questioned by the boss of one of the world's biggest producers of the product. Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell, said that while the take-up of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is expected to grow, its use in the aviation industry is presently "less than 0.1%." He said only stricter gov’t mandates would push airlines into using a fuel—typically made from cooking oil or animal fats—that can be between two and four times more expensive. “But I think, just from a fundamentals basis, it grows from a low base. I mean, airlines will not simply erode their bottom lines for the sake of it." Reeves claims otherwise, "I believe it is a game-changer in the way that we fly and the carbon emissions." She she said sustainable fuel “reduces CO, emissions compared to fossil fuel by around 70%". In December the UK gov’t published its own mandate for sustainable aviation fuel. It said the obligation to use such fuel "starts in 2025 at 2% of total UK jet fuel demand, increasing linearly to 10% in 2030 and then to 22% 2040". It added that "from 2040, the obligation will remain at 22% of total UK jet fuel demand until there is greater certainty regarding SAF supply". That implies that, even by 2040, more than three-quarters of the fuel used by airlines at Heathrow would still be fossil fuels. Shell supplies sustainable fuel to customers in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region, including some of the world's largest airport hubs, with its "SAF delivery footprint" now spanning 40 locations in ten countries. It said that about 11 markets, including Europe and Singapore, have targets for the fuel, as do 25 airlines representing 35% of global aviation emissions. Sawan said it was important that "these mandates stick" but “what we have seen, if anything, is a backsliding on mandates in multiple countries, which has of course impacted some of the investments we have made". He said, "We talked about $10 to $15 billion to be invested by Shell over the three-year period up to 2025. We've invested eight of that and we're on track to reach that range but what we are seeing is backsliding in biofuels mandates and biogas mandates and that if anything will erode confidence for the future to invest any further:" Asked what proportion of aviation fuel around the world he thought would be sustainable by 2035, Sawan replied: “A very, very small proportion." In her speech on growth, Reeves said, “We are investing £63 million into the advanced fuels fund over the next year". She said the gov’t planned to introduce a "revenue certainty mechanism" to "encourage investment into this growing industry". ♻️ ⛽ ✈️ 👀 #aviation #transportation #biofuels