Category Archives: Energy

UK ministers push ahead with discount on bills for households near new pylons

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Plans have provoked outrage from communities in areas of Great Britain expected to host new infrastructure

The government is pushing head with a plan to offer those who live near new electricity pylons a discount of £2,500 from their energy bills over the next 10 years to ease the backlash against its clean power plans.

Thousands of households within half a kilometre of new or upgraded electricity infrastructure could each receive up to £250 off their annual energy bill from next year to help speed up the rollout of infrastructure critical to the government’s targets.

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BP makes its biggest oil and gas discovery in 25 years off coast of Brazil

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Company to carry out more tests on its Santos basin find as it continues shift from renewables back to fossil fuels

BP has made its largest oil and gas discovery of the past 25 years off the coast of Brazil as it continues to shift its focus away from renewables and back to fossil fuels.

The Santos basin oil and gas discovery, which is located in deep waters, is the company’s 10th oil discovery of the year and could be its largest since its discovery at the Shah Deniz gasfield in Azerbaijan in 1999.

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Countries failing to act on UN climate pledge to triple renewables, thinktank finds

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Fossil fuel reliance likely to continue and Cop28 target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C will be missed

Most global governments have failed to act on the 2023 UN pledge to triple the world’s renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade, according to climate analysts.

The failure to act means that on current forecasts the world will fall far short of its clean energy goals, leading to a continued reliance on fossil fuels that is incompatible with the target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C.

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Gorilla habitats and pristine forest at risk as DRC opens half of country to oil and gas drilling bids

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Government launches licensing round for 52 fossil fuel blocks, potentially undermining a flagship conservation initiative and affecting an estimated 39 million people

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is opening crucial gorilla habitats and pristine forests to bids for oil and gas drilling, with plans to carve up more than half the country into fossil fuel blocks.

The blocks opened for auction cover 124m hectares (306m acres) of land and inland waters described by experts as the “world’s worst place to prospect for oil” because they hold vast amounts of carbon and are home to some of the planet’s most precious wildlife habitats, including endangered lowland gorillas and bonobo.

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Australia’s surge in household battery installations is ‘off the charts’ as government subsidy program powers up

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At current rate, households could have 10,000MW installed in five years – half the nation’s total coal power capacity, expert says

A federal government program that gives a 30% subsidy on home batteries has sparked an “off the charts” surge in installations, with more than 11,500 applications to the scheme in its first three weeks.

Industry analysts said the battery boom was reminiscent of the surge in rooftop solar 15 years ago, and that it was ushering in a second revolution in home electricity.

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China starts building world’s biggest hydropower dam

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1.2tn yuan project has broken ground in Tibet, premier says, despite fears of downstream nations India and Bangladesh

Construction of the world’s biggest hydropower megadam has begun, China’s premier has said, calling it the “project of the century”.

The huge structure is being built on the Yarlung Tsangpo river, in Tibetan territory.

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Barnaby Joyce vows to wind back ‘lunatic crusade’ of net zero with private member’s bill

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Coalition’s decades-long brawl over climate change and energy policy laid bare as former deputy prime minister sends out clarion call on Facebook

Barnaby Joyce has vowed to wind back the “lunatic crusade” of net zero by 2050 in a private member’s bill once parliament resumes later this month.

The former deputy prime minister and Nationals backbencher’s clarion call on Friday afternoon laid bare the Coalition’s decades-long brawl over climate change and energy policy.

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EU urged to build stockpiles to prepare for pandemic, natural disaster or invasion

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European Commission unveils strategy for storing food, medicine, generators and raw materials

The EU should develop stockpiles of food, medicine, generators and raw materials to be better prepared for a military invasion, pandemic or natural disaster, the European Commission has said.

Outlining its first-ever strategy on stockpiling, the EU executive said on Wednesday member states should also consider emergency supplies of water purification products, equipment to repair undersea cables, drones and mobile bridges for use in conflicts.

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Australians could cut power bills by 90% if they made their homes more energy efficient, report finds

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Debate on how to generate energy ‘important but misses the point’, analyst says, when you can get such savings by using solar, batteries and efficient appliances

The debate over where Australia gets its energy from has played out like a “comic-book death battle between coal and renewables” in recent years, according to Luke Menzel, the chief executive officer of the Energy Efficiency Council.

Discussions over coal versus renewables, the role of gas and the speed of infrastructure rollout to bring renewables online had been “important”, Menzel said. “But there’s a whole other conversation we need to be having. And that’s about how we are using energy.”

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Australian government loans $100m to install EV chargers and solar panels at Bunnings and Officeworks stores

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Work to upgrade facilities at Bunnings and Officeworks sites is expected to be completed by the end of this year

Wesfarmers has secured a $100m loan with the government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation to install more solar panels, batteries and EV chargers at its Bunnings and Officeworks stores.

The chief executive of the CEFC, Ian Learmonth, said he hoped the financing package at the high-profile stores would help create a “ripple effect” through the commercial sector, where the uptake of rooftop solar has been slower than across residential properties.

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Albanese will need to resolve the standoff with Turkey if Australia is to host Cop31

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Hosting the climate summit is a major political and logistical exercise. The prime minister is being urged to turbocharge the diplomatic effort

The Australian government’s bid to host a major global climate conference in Adelaide next year wasn’t supposed to go like this.

A two-week meeting of diplomats at the UN climate headquarters in Bonn, Germany, failed to resolve what has become a long-running issue: whether the summit known as Cop31 would be held in Australia or Turkey, the only other nation vying for the rights.

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Don’t believe the hype: Victorian government deserves credit for not buckling to aggressive pro-gas campaign

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Australia’s most gas-reliant state takes a significant step to move households and businesses away from fossil fuels and cut energy bills

It didn’t go as far as previously flagged, but don’t believe the negative hype about Victoria’s plan to start weaning off gas: it is a significant step that will help drive households and businesses away from fossil fuels and cut energy bills.

The Allan Labor government announced that gas heating and hot water systems will be banned in all new homes and nearly all new commercial buildings, including schools and hospitals, from 1 January 2027. They will not be connected to the state’s gas network and will run on electric systems. New agricultural and manufacturing buildings, some of which use gas for high-temperature industrial processes, are excluded.

Though still marketed as “natural”, and sometimes even as “clean”, gas is actually methane – a highly potent fossil fuel. It releases plenty of greenhouse gas when burned. The electricity grid is moving from being dominated by coal-fired power to renewable energy. Electric appliances are better for the planet and the people who live on it. It is a necessary part of getting to net zero emissions.

Gas is expensive. Analysis has found electrification of appliances should save households nearly $1,000 a year on their energy bills. There are upfront costs in getting new systems, but the Victorian policy is not forcing people to change over until their existing system is dead, and offers rebates to help with the change.

Victoria is running out of gas. For decades, it has relied on reservoirs in Bass Strait, but they are running low, and all potential new sources are expensive. The state government wants to install a 20-year floating liquified natural gas (LNG) import terminal near Geelong to make sure demand is met. It sounds ridiculous, but may be the least bad option available – after the most obvious one: reducing gas use as much as possible so that it is available for the few industrial processes that do not yet have viable alternatives.

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Australians could be spared excessive power bills as Labor looks to stamp out price gouging

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Chris Bowen to announce review of default market offer, which guides what retailers can charge households and businesses

Households could be spared unreasonable power bill rises in the future as the Albanese government looks to stamp out price gouging after repeated price hikes.

In an address to the Australian Energy Week on Wednesday, Chris Bowen is expected to announce a review of the default market offer (DMO), which sets a benchmark price for residential and small business electricity bills.

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Brazil to auction oil exploration rights months before hosting Cop30

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Sale covering 56,000 square miles set to go ahead despite opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups

The Brazilian government is preparing to stage an oil exploration auction months before it hosts the Cop30 UN climate summit, despite opposition from environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities worried about the environmental and climate impacts of the plans.

Brazil’s oil sector regulator, ANP, will auction the exploration rights to 172 oil and gas blocks spanning 56,000 square miles (146,000 sq km), an area more than twice the size of Scotland, most of it offshore.

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Sizewell C power station to be built as part of UK’s £14bn nuclear investment

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Ed Miliband promises to ‘get Britain off the fossil fuel rollercoaster’ with new plant expected to create 10,000 jobs

The biggest nuclear programme in a generation will “get Britain off the fossil fuel rollercoaster”, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has said, announcing £14.2bn to build a new nuclear power station and a drive to build small modular reactors.

The multibillion-pound investment at Sizewell C on the Suffolk coast, which has been long expected, will create 10,000 jobs and power the equivalent of 6m homes.

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Nigel Farage’s pitch for Welsh elections: bring back coalmining

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Reform leader says steel and coal industries can be revived but does not say how beyond ‘scrapping net zero’

Nigel Farage has demanded the reopening of domestic coalmines to provide fuel for new blast furnaces, arguing that Welsh people would happily return to mining if the pay was sufficiently high.

Speaking at an event in Port Talbot, the south Wales town traditionally associated with the steel industry, the Reform UK leader said it was in the “national interest” to have a guaranteed supply of steel, as well as UK-produced fuel for the furnaces, a close echo of Donald Trump’s repeated pledges to return heavy industry to the US.

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Will the North Sea oil and gas industry be Labour’s next U-turn?

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With Nigel Farage targeting net zero, could government policy change to protect jobs, revenue and votes?

It was inevitable that Nigel Farage would take Reform UK’s campaign tour to Aberdeen. On a visit to the capital of the UK’s oil and gas industry on Monday he welcomed a defecting Aberdeen Conservative councillor, the 13th defection to his party’s ranks in Scotland to date.

Reform is hoping to make political hay from the discontent surrounding the government’s North Sea policies, the demise of the oil and gas basin and the vast workforce that depends on it. The populist party has vowed to reverse the government’s ban on fresh North Sea oil and gas drilling as a “day one” priority if elected to power in 2029.

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Labour’s £13.2bn warm homes plan will not face cuts in spending review

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Source confirms decision that will help meet net zero targets and pledge to cut energy bills by £300

Ministers have decided not to cut Labour’s landmark £13.2bn fund to fix draughty homes and install heat pumps and solar panels in next week’s spending review, it has emerged.

A government source confirmed Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, would not be making cuts to the flagship warm homes plan. The decision, which was first reported by the Daily Telegraph, marks a victory for Ed Miliband in his negotiations with the Treasury over the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s budget.

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Meta signs deal with nuclear plant to power AI and datacenters for 20 years

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Facebook and Instagram parent’s deal follows other big tech companies signing agreements with power companies

Meta on Tuesday said it had struck an agreement to keep one nuclear reactor of a US utility company in Illinois operating for 20 years.

Meta’s deal with Constellation Energy is the social networking company’s first with a nuclear power plant. Other large tech companies are looking to secure electricity as US power demand rises significantly in part due to the needs of artificial intelligence and datacenters. Google has reached agreements to supply its datacenters with nuclear power via a half-dozen small reactors built by a California utility company. Microsoft’s similar contract will restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the most serious nuclear accident and radiation leak in US history.

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‘Going to increase prices on everybody’: US energy department workers sound alarm over cuts

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Employees say cuts and deregulation undermine department’s ability to function and will cause cost hikes

Workers at the US Department of Energy say cuts and deregulations are undermining the ability for the department to function and will result in significant energy cost hikes for consumers.

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will raise energy costs for American households by as much as 7% in 2035 due to the repeal of energy tax credits and could put significant investment and energy innovation at risk, according to a report by the Rhodium Group. The non-partisan think tank Energy Innovation calculated the average US household will see its utility bills rise by over $230 by 2035 as a result of cuts to renewable energy investments.

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