Category Archives: Energy

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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Australia’s emissions up slightly in 2024 as Labor faces heat over ‘climate-wrecking’ gas project

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Greens leader accuses Albanese government of failing two climate tests: pollution on the rise and approving extension for North West Shelf

Australia’s climate-heating emissions increased fractionally last year as pollution from fossil fuel power plants rose for the first time in a decade, and domestic air travel and use of diesel-powered cars and trucks hit record highs.

The jump in emissions was small – just 0.05% – due to falls in pollution from other sectors. But the direction was at odds with the Albanese government’s pledge to cut pollution to reach targets for 2030 and 2050.

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Energy bills to rise by up to 9.7% as Australian regulators approve price increases

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Hundreds of thousands of households in line for electricity bill increases with NSW customers on standing offers facing steepest rise

Power bill increases of upwards of 9% have been locked in for some Australian households as energy regulators make a final call on safety net prices.

Caps on what retailers can charge households and businesses in NSW, South Australia, south-east Queensland and Victoria are designed to protect the hundreds of thousands of customers who tend to set-and-forget their power plans.

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Trump signs executive orders to spur US ‘nuclear energy renaissance’

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President aims to construct new nuclear reactors as he implements his own energy policies and undoes Joe Biden’s

Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on Friday intended to spur a “nuclear energy renaissance” through the construction of new reactors he said would satisfy the electricity demands of data centers for artificial intelligence and other emerging industries.

The orders represented the president’s latest foray into the policy underlying America’s electricity supply. Trump declared a national energy emergency on his first day in office over and moved to undo a ban implemented by Joe Biden on new natural gas export terminals and expand oil and gas drilling in Alaska.

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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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Guardian Essential poll: PM’s approval rating surges amid calls to hurry upd housing and health reform

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More than 40% of voters say Labor’s large majority should encourage Anthony Albanese to get more ambitious with policies in key areas

Anthony Albanese’s personal approval rating has spiked off the back of his election win, as an overwhelming majority of Australians call on Labor to rapidly initiate health, housing and energy reform.

More than 40% of voters say Labor’s large parliamentary majority should encourage Albanese to set out an even more ambitious schedule of reform, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. The prime minister’s popularity has risen to its highest level for a year, the poll showed.

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Potential role for Chinese firm in key UK windfarm attracts government scrutiny

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Exclusive: Decision on whether to work with turbine maker being overseen by ministers after British Steel rescue

Ministers are weighing up proposals for a Chinese company to supply wind turbines for a major offshore windfarm in the North Sea.

The government is in discussions with Green Volt North Sea over whether Mingyang, China’s biggest offshore wind company, should supply the wind turbines. Mingyang has emerged as the preferred manufacturer, but the company has sought advice from ministers on whether to proceed.

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Cost of emissions from five major Australian resource companies more than $900bn, study finds

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US researchers link BHP, Rio Tinto, Santos, Whitehaven Coal and Woodside Energy to specific climate harms over three decades

Five of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel producers could be on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars in damages after a US research team developed a method to link individual companies to specific climate harms and put a dollar figure to the impact.

This is the result of a new peer-review study published in the journal Nature that sought to establish a method that would allow courts to quantify the economic loss caused by fossil fuel producers for one kind of climate impact – extreme heat.

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‘World’s largest’ electric ship measuring 130 metres launched by Tasmanian boatbuilder

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Manufacturer Incat built Hull 096 to run between Buenos Aires and Uruguay, dubbing it the ‘most complex’ project it has ever undertaken

An Australian boatbuilder has launched what it describes as the world’s largest battery-power ship, describing it as a “a giant leap forward in sustainable shipping” and the “most important” project it has ever done.

Incat, a manufacturer based in Tasmania, constructed the ship – called Hull 096 – after being contracted by the South American ferry operator Buquebus to build a vessel to run between the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, and Uruguay.

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UK banks put £75bn into firms building climate-wrecking ‘carbon bombs’, study finds

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Exclusive: Britain is key financial hub for destructive fossil fuel mega-projects, according to research

Banks in the City of London have poured more than $100bn (£75bn) into companies developing “carbon bombs” – huge oil, gas and coal projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global consequences – according to a study.

Nine London-based banks, including HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds are involved in financing companies responsible for at least 117 carbon bomb projects in 28 countries between 2016 – the year after the landmark Paris agreement was signed – and 2023, according to the study.

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Trump has launched more attacks on the environment in 100 days than his entire first term

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Blitzkrieg has hit protections in place for land, oceans, forests and wildlife, and will worsen the climate crisis

Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented assault upon the environment, instigating 145 actions to undo rules protecting clean air, water and a livable climate in this administration’s first 100 days – more rollbacks than were completed in Trump’s entire first term as US president.

Trump’s blitzkrieg has hit almost every major policy to shield Americans from toxic pollution, curb the worsening impacts of the climate crisis and protect landscapes, oceans, forests and imperiled wildlife.

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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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