Category Archives: Energy industry

Reeves hopes hat-trick of deals shows Britain is open for business

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Impact of agreements on food, energy and defence may not be huge but chancellor believes it will draw investors to UK

Rachel Reeves joked to journalists after Monday’s EU-UK reset that trade deals were coming along “like buses”, given the agreements with India and the US that had also been sealed in the past fortnight alone.

The chancellor described the EU deal as the best that had been secured by any non-member country, but she was also keen to talk about the three successful negotiations as a package.

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Denmark rethinking 40-year nuclear power ban amid Europe-wide shift

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Government to analyse potential benefits of new generation of reactors

Denmark is reconsidering its 40-year ban on nuclear power in a major policy shift for the renewables-heavy country.

The Danish government will analyse the potential benefits of a new generation of nuclear power technologies after banning traditional nuclear reactors in 1985, its energy minister said.

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‘Blackouts can happen anywhere’: how power systems worldwide can collapse

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After Europe’s biggest blackout in over 20 years, experts warn that while such incidents are rare, no grid is infallible

Europe’s biggest blackout in over 20 years on the Iberian peninsula unleashed hours of chaos for people in Spain, Portugal and parts of France earlier this week. But in the aftermath it has raised a common question for governments across the continent: could the same happen here?

Europe’s political leaders and energy system operators have given assurances that such blackouts are extraordinarily rare, and that European power grids are some of the most stable in the world.

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Blair’s net zero intervention invites scrutiny of his institute’s donors

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Labour insider rebukes ‘tech bros’ within Tony Blair Institute as critics question past work with petrostates

In little more than 1,600 words voicing his scepticism over net zero policies, Tony Blair this week propelled himself and his increasingly powerful institute back into the national debate.

In the past eight years, the former prime minister has built a global empire employing more than 900 people across more than 40 countries, providing policy advice to monarchs, presidents and prime ministers.

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Equinor considers suing Trump administration over halted US windfarm

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Norway’s state energy company’s $2.5bn project off coast of New York was almost a third finished

Norway’s state energy company may take Donald Trump’s administration to court after it ordered an “unprecedented” halt to a $2.5bn (£1.87bn) windfarm project off the coast of New York.

Equinor is considering its legal options after the US interior secretary, Doug Burgum, ordered the company to “immediately halt all construction activities” on an offshore windfarm last month.

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Spain and Portugal power outage: what caused it, and was there a cyber-attack?

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Several countries in Europe have been scrambling to restore electricity after a huge power cut caused blackouts

Spain, Portugal and some of south-west France suffered a massive power cut on Monday, with major cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon among those affected.

Houses, offices, trains, traffic lights and even the Madrid open tennis tournament were all hit, causing chaos for millions of people and prompting a scramble by the Spanish and Portuguese governments and network operators to understand the problem and race to fix it.

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Six things we learned about the future of energy security at UK summit

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Critical minerals, nuclear power and the ‘weaponisation’ of energy supplies were discussed at international conference

The UK and the International Energy Agency gathered ministers and high-level officials from 60 countries to Lancaster House in London for two days of talks on the future of energy security this week. The EU was out in force, the US sent a top official, but China stayed away. Here’s what we learned.

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MPs question value of billions in subsidies granted to Drax power plant

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Spending watchdog warns £6.5bn in funding may not offer value for public money amid ongoing sustainability concerns

A government spending watchdog has questioned the value of the multi-billion pound subsidies granted to the Drax power plant in North Yorkshire – and said that plans to hand over billions more may not represent value for money.

The government has provided about £22bn of public money to businesses and households that burn biomass pellets as fuel over the past three years, including £6.5bn for the owner of the Drax plant.

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UK manufacturers to cut jobs ‘within weeks unless ministers can strike trade deal’

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Bosses from automative, manufacturing and energy warned MPs about effect of Trump tariffs

Britain’s manufacturers will start cutting jobs “within weeks” unless the government can strike a deal to safeguard the UK economy from Donald Trump’s trade war, industry leaders have told MPs.

Senior executives from the UK’s automotive, manufacturing and energy sectors warned a committee of MPs to expect job losses this summer if the US moves ahead with a swathe of global trade tariffs set out by Trump earlier this month.

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China to snub UK energy summit amid row over infrastructure projects

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Exclusive: Absence of world’s biggest clean energy producer will be welcomed by US pushing oil and gas exports

China is to snub a major UK summit on energy security next week, the Guardian has learned, amid a growing row over the country’s involvement in UK infrastructure projects.

The US will send a senior White House official to the 60-country summit, to be co-hosted with the International Energy Agency. Leading oil and gas companies are also invited, along with big technology businesses, and petrostates including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

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EU mulls plan to let importers break Russian gas contracts without penalties

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European Commission may reportedly let companies declare force majeure as part of strategy to rid bloc of Russian fossil fuels by 2027

The European Commission is considering plans that would allow European companies to break long-term Russian gas contracts without paying penalties to Moscow, it has been reported.

Citing three officials with knowledge of the plan, the Financial Times reported that the commission was studying the possibility of allowing companies to declare force majeure, which would absolve importers of their obligations to pay penalty fees for ending contracts.

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US ‘demands control’ from Ukraine of key pipeline carrying Russian gas

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Senior Kyiv economist describes latest postion of Trump administration in talks as ‘colonial-type’ bullying

The US has demanded control of a crucial pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, in a move described as a colonial shakedown.

US and Ukrainian officials met on Friday to discuss White House proposals for a minerals deal. Donald Trump wants Kyiv to hand over its natural resources as “payback” in return for weapons delivered by the previous Biden administration.

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Will global climate action be a casualty of Trump’s tariffs?

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Clean energy investors likely to pull back from US, but other countries may seize opportunity to speed transition

Donald Trump’s upending of the global economy has raised fears that climate action could emerge as a casualty of the trade war.

In the week that has followed “liberation day”, economic experts have warned that the swathe of tariffs could trigger a global economic recession, with far-reaching consequences for investors – including those behind the green energy projects needed to meet climate goals.

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Trump signs orders to allow coal-fired power plants to remain open

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Move aimed at addressing rise in power demand for datacenters, AI and EVs, but environmentalists call it a step back

Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday aimed at reviving coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that has long been in decline, and which substantially contributes to planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

Environmentalists expressed dismay at the news, saying that Trump was stuck in the past and wanted to make utility customers “pay more for yesterday’s energy”.

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Northern Ireland faces court case over £300m north-south power pylon plan

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Campaigners claim NI is being used as a ‘whipping boy’ to feed Irish republic’s energy-hungry datacentres

An ambitious €350m (£300m) plan to connect electricity grids across the island of Ireland is heading for the high court after a challenge brought by campaigners claiming Northern Ireland was being used as a “whipping boy” to feed the republic’s energy-hungry datacentres.

An estimated 150 landowners representing 6,500 residents have called on the Northern Ireland minister for infrastructure, Liz Kimmins, to suspend the construction of more than 100 towering pylons in Armagh and Tyrone until a judicial review, due to start on 9 April, has been completed.

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UK steel industry calls for capped energy prices amid Trump trade war

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British steelmakers lobby for government to set limit to compete with France and Germany

The British steel industry has called for capped energy prices for heavy industry in order to match France and Germany, as companies grapple with the fallout from Donald Trump’s trade war.

UK Steel, a lobby group, has proposed the government set a maximum price for energy through a contract for difference (CfD), before an announcement of a new steel strategy.

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Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda could keep the world hooked on oil and gas

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The US president is making energy deals with Japan and Ukraine, and in Africa has even touted resurrecting coal

Donald Trump’s repeated mantra of “drill, baby, drill” demands that more oil and gas be extracted in the United States, but the president has set his sights on an even broader goal: keeping the world hooked on planet-heating fossil fuels for as long as possible.

In deals being formulated with countries such as Japan and Ukraine, Trump is using US leverage in tariffs and military aid to bolster the flow of oil and gas around the world. In Africa, his administration has even touted the resurrection of coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, to bring energy to the continent.

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What the world needs now is more fossil fuels, says Trump’s energy secretary

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Chris Wright signals abandonment of Biden’s ‘irrational, quasi-religious’ climate policies at industry conference

The world needs more planet-heating fossil fuel, not less, Donald Trump’s newly appointed energy secretary, Chris Wright, told oil and gas bigwigs on Monday.

“We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less,” he said in the opening plenary talk of CERAWeek, a swanky annual conference in Houston, Texas, led by the financial firm S&P Global.

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Nigerian king faces Shell in London high court over decades of oil spills

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King Okpabi, ruler of Ogale, says Shell has caused chronic pollution, while oil firm argues it is not responsible

His Royal Highness King Godwin Bebe Okpabi has carried bottles of water drawn from the wells of his homeland in the Niger delta to the high court in London.

It stinks. “This is the water that Shell has left for my people,” said the ruler of the Ogale community in Ogoniland, Nigeria. “This is poison, and they are spending millions of dollars to pay the best lawyers in the world so that they will not clean my land.”

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UK Treasury ‘plans funding cuts at GB Energy’ in blow to Ed Miliband

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Government considering such a move over state-owned firm set up by Labour in June’s spending review, say reports

The UK government is making plans to cut the funding for GB Energy, the state-owned company set up by Labour to drive renewable energy and cut household bills, in June’s spending review.

Cuts to the £8.3bn of taxpayer money promised over the five-year parliament would be another blow for Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, after he was overruled by the government when the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, backed the expansion of Heathrow’s third runway.

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