Category Archives: Energy

Britain beyond lockdown: can UK become cleaner?

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As Covid-19 accelerates the shift towards renewable energy, Jonathan Watts hears how this change risks causing intergenerational injustice in Aberdeen

Like many young people in Aberdeen, Mike Scotland dreamed of a well-paid job on a rig in the North Sea, in the oil and gas field that has made his home town a boom town for most of the past 40 years.

In February the 28-year-old landed the position he had wanted with Shell, and he was due to take a helicopter to the Shearwater platform in July once he had completed training.

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Papua New Guinea chiefs call for halt to plan for country’s largest ever mine

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Locals say the Sepik river region must be protected from ‘exploitation and destruction from outsiders’

Chiefs from 28 haus tambarans – “spirit houses” – representing 78,000 people along Papua New Guinea’s remote Sepik river have formally declared they want a proposal for the country’s largest ever mine halted.

PanAust, an Australian-registered miner ultimately owned by the Chinese state-owned Guangdong Rising Assets Management, has proposed building a gold, silver and copper mine on the Frieda river, a tributary to the Sepik.

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Huge fire breaks out at India gas well blowout

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Fire has reportedly spread to homes near well that has been leaking ‘uncontrollably’ for two weeks

A massive fire has broken out at an oil field in north-eastern India, after gas that had been leaking for two weeks ignited, sending plumes of smoke and flames into the sky, and reportedly setting fire to nearby homes.

Five deaths in the area are being investigated for potential links to the gas well, which has been leaking “uncontrollably” for two weeks, according to Oil India, the state-owned company managing the oil field.

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Renewable energy stimulus can create three times as many Australian jobs as fossil fuels

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Government spending on clean energy would deliver 100,000 new jobs, EY assessment finds

Stimulus programs backing clean energy as a path out of recession would create nearly three times as many jobs for every dollar spent on fossil fuel developments, according to a financial consultancy analysis.

The assessment by professional services firm Ernst & Young (EY) says a government focus on renewable energy and climate-friendly projects to drive the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic could create more than 100,000 direct jobs across the country while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

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EU’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to fall as coal ditched

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New figures for 2018 show 2.1% drop on previous year in switch to renewables

Greenhouse gas emissions in the EU continued their fall in 2018, the latest year for which comprehensive data is available, according to a new report from Europe’s environment watchdog.

Emissions fell by 2.1% compared with 2017, to a level 23% lower than in 1990, the baseline for the bloc’s emission cuts under the UN’s climate agreements. If the UK is excluded, the decline since 1990 was smaller, standing at 20.7%.

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UK approval for biggest gas power station in Europe ruled legal

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High court rejects challenge after ministers overruled climate objections of planning officials

The UK government’s approval of a large new gas-fired power plant has been ruled legal by the high court. A legal challenge was brought after ministers overruled climate change objections from planning authorities.

The plant, which is being developed by Drax in North Yorkshire, would be the biggest gas power station in Europe, and could account for 75% of the UK’s power sector emissions when fully operational, according to lawyers for ClientEarth, which brought the judicial review.

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Deputy PM ‘very concerned’ over reports China’s power plants warned not to buy Australian coal

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Michael McCormack says trade minister and diplomats are trying to fix the issue

Deputy prime minister Michael McCormack is concerned coal exporters could face a tougher time selling the commodity into China.

There are reports the Chinese government is warning state-owned power plants not to buy new shipments of Australian thermal coal and instead favour domestic products.

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Polémico proyecto de fracking en Argentina amenazado por la pandemia de coronavirus

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El confinamiento y la caída del precio del petróleo ponen en juego el futuro de un enorme yacimiento petrolífero argentino

En las próximas semanas, se esclarecerá si el mundo vuelve a los combustibles fósiles tras la pandemia o si da un paso adelante hacia una economía limpia, mientras el FMI (Fondo Monetario Internacional) y Argentina deciden si van a continuar ofreciendo su apoyo a los inmensos yacimientos de petróleo y gas de Vaca Muerta, en Patagonia.

El objetivo del proyecto es explotar el segundo depósito más grande de esquisto del planeta (después de la Cuenca Pérmica, en Texas), pero su futuro es incierto debido al confinamiento forzoso provocado por COVID-19, que ha causado el descenso más drástico en el precio del crudo de los últimos treinta años.

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Makeshift oil refineries a necessary evil for locals in north-west Syria

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Toxic fumes and repiratory disease among hazards facing people reliant on informal processing plants for work and fuel, study finds

Black pools, long trenches and charred earth have become common sights in the fields of north-west Syria, signs of an informal oil economy that has developed during the war.

Despite damaging both the environment and health, up to 5,000 backyard oil refineries, crucial to the livelihoods of besieged Syrians, have cropped up in recent years, identified through satellite imagery in a report by open source investigators Bellingcat.

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Supertankers drafted in to store glut of crude oil

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Ships able to carry 2m barrels chartered for $335,000 a day to store oil unwanted during the Covid-19 pandemic

Giant oil tankers are being used to hold record amounts of crude at sea due to a global oversupply that threatens to overwhelm the world’s storage facilities.

A record 160m barrels of oil has been stored in “supergiant” oil tankers outside the world’s largest shipping ports following the deepest fall in oil demand in 25 years because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Shell unveils plans to become net-zero carbon company by 2050

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Firm to cut carbon intensity by selling more green energy but critics say first step must be to stop new drilling

Royal Dutch Shell plans to become a net zero-carbon company by 2050 or sooner by selling more green energy to help reduce the carbon intensity of its business.

Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, said the company must focus on the long-term “even at this time of immediate challenge” caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Snowy Hydro 2.0 will cost more and deliver less than promised, 30 experts say

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Group calls for independent review of project it says would permanently damage Kosciuszko national park

Engineers, economists, energy specialists and environmentalists are calling for a final decision on the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project to be delayed to allow an independent review, claiming it will cost far more and deliver far less than has been promised.

The group of 30 said the 2,000-megawatt pumped hydro storage project in the Snowy Mountains would permanently damage the Kosciuszko national park.

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Utrecht rooftops to be ‘greened’ with plants and mosses in new plan

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‘Vertical forest’ tower will have 10,000 plants on its facade in bid to reinvigorate biodiversity

Every roof in the city district of Utrecht is to be “greened” with plants and mosses or have solar panels installed under plans driven by the success of a similar scheme for the municipality’s bus stops.

The “no roofs unused” policy is part of an attempt to reinvigorate biodiversity in the city and create a less stressful and happier environment, of which the construction of a so-called “vertical forest tower with 10,000 plants on its facade is set to become a leading example.

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Energy storage boom stalls in Europe

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Slowdown in large-scale clean energy projects started before coronavirus crisis due to lack of state support

Europe’s energy storage boom stalled last year due to a slowdown in large-scale schemes designed to store clean electricity from major renewable energy projects, according to the European Association for Storage of Energy (Ease).

A new study by consultants Delta-EE for Ease found that the European market grew by a total of 1 gigawatt-hours in 2019, a significant slowdown compared with 2018, when the energy storage market exceeded expectations to grow by 1.47GWh.

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Study: global banks ‘failing miserably’ on climate crisis by funneling trillions into fossil fuels

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Analysis of 35 leading investment banks shows financing of more than $2.66tn for fossil fuel industries since the Paris agreement

The world’s largest investment banks have funnelled more than £2.2tn ($2.66tn) into fossil fuels since the Paris agreement, new figures show, prompting warnings they are failing to respond to the climate crisis.

The US bank JP Morgan Chase, whose economists warned that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity last month, has been the largest financier of fossil fuels in the four years since the agreement, providing over £220bn of financial services to extract oil, gas and coal.

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Coronavirus poses threat to climate action, says watchdog

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IEA warns that Covid-19 could cause a slowdown in world’s clean energy transition

The coronavirus health crisis may lead to a slump in global carbon emissions this year but the outbreak poses a threat to long-term climate action by undermining investment in clean energy, according to the global energy watchdog.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the economic fallout of Covid-19 to wipe out the world’s oil demand growth for the year ahead, which should cap the fossil fuel emissions that contribute to the climate crisis.

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Liberal MP says Coalition needs to look at a 2050 net zero emissions target – politics live

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Trent Zimmerman says Australia needs to look beyond good target for 2030 as we head into Glasgow. All the day’s events, live

It’s time for who’s that MP?

It’s Andrew Wallace.

Asked about the Nationals (and some Liberals) who claim a net zero 2050 emissions target would bring about end of days, Trent Zimmerman tells the ABC:

No-one is saying that getting to 2050 with a net zero target is an easy task. It is a challenge.

We know in many areas we are doing really well.

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Malcolm Turnbull warns of ‘catastrophic’ future without net zero emissions goal – politics live

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The former prime minister has stepped into the climate debate, with a stark warning to moderate Liberals to act. All the day’s events, live

Greg Hunt will be giving the next coronavirus update at 1.10pm

Meanwhile, the lights keep flickering in Parliament House, which can only mean that my moods have begun to physically manifest.

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Coalition reignites climate war over Labor’s emissions policy – politics live

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Government MPs have lashed out at Labor over its emissions target, with arguments in parliament’s corridors. All the days events, live

Parliament starts at 10am.

Tellingly, Joel Fitzgibbon is on board with Labor’s plan. Here he is writing for his local paper, the Newcastle Herald over the weekend:

The aspiration of carbon neutrality by 2050 (zero net emissions) offers a conservative and low-risk path to satisfying the commitment Malcolm Turnbull made in Paris on our behalf back in 2015.

First, it provides plenty of time to think and act, including the time needed to embrace existing and future technologies.

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Canadian police had ‘no authority’ to search pipeline activists, says watchdog

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Letter offers scathing criticism of police’s tactics against Wet’suwet’en people amid growing protest over gas pipeline

Canadian federal police had “no legal authority” to make ID checks and searches on activists seeking to block a pipeline project on Indigenous territory, according to newly released correspondence from the force’s oversight body.

The nine-page letter written by Michelaine Lahaie, chair of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP, offers scathing criticism of the police’s continued use of tactics against Indigenous people which she had previously warned against.

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