All Things Environment

[Farfromgeneva]

Behind the Energy Crisis: Fossil Fuel Investment Drops, and Renewables Aren’t Ready
The transition to cleaner energy sources isn’t far enough along to meet a surge in demand

By Christopher M. Matthews, Collin Eaton and Benoit Faucon
Oct. 17, 2021 3:09 pm ET

An energy price shock is serving as a reminder of the world’s continued dependency on fossil fuels—even amid efforts to shift to renewable sources of energy.

Demand for oil, coal and natural gas has skyrocketed world-wide in recent weeks as unusual weather conditions and resurgent economies emerging from the pandemic combine to create energy shortages from China to Brazil to the U.K.

The situation has laid bare the fragility of global supplies as countries drive to pivot from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy, a shift many investors and governments are trying to accelerate amid concerns about climate change.

The transition figures to be challenging for years to come, energy executives and analysts say, due to a stark reality: While fossil fuel investment is falling, fossil fuels account for most energy—and green energy spending isn’t growing fast enough to fill the gap.

Supply Shift
In order to reduce the world's net carbon emissions to zero by 2050, renewable energy sources must quickly displace oil and other fossil fuels.

Projected market share of energy supply to reach zero emissions

Demand for power remains robust even as supply chains begin to strain. In some cases, supplies of renewable resources such as wind and hydroelectric power have fallen short of forecasts, further boosting demand for fossil fuels.

The International Energy Agency, a group that advises countries on energy policies, this month projected global oil demand will reach about 99.6 million barrels a day next year, near pre-pandemic levels. It forecasts that coal demand is set to exceed 2019 levels this year and rise somewhat until 2025, though how quickly it falls from there will depend on government actions to phase out the fuel.

“A lot less product is available to meet this now rapid growth we’re seeing,” Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Darren Woods said in virtual remarks at a conference in Russia Wednesday. “If we don’t balance the demand equation and only address the supply, it will lead to additional volatility.”

The world’s oil production is still rising, but struggling to catch up with a surge in consumption from countries recovering from the pandemic, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Oil investments dry up

Global oil and gas exploration spending, excluding shale, averaged about $100 billion a year from 2010 to 2015, but dropped to an average of around $50 billion in the years that followed after a crash in crude prices, according to Rystad Energy.

Total global oil and gas investment this year will be down about 26% from pre-pandemic levels to $356 billion, the IEA said Wednesday. That is about where it would need to remain for the next decade, before declining further, to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, according to the IEA. The international pact seeks to limit global temperature increases to no more than two degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels, and preferably 1.5 degrees.

To meet global energy demand, as well as climate aspirations, investments in clean energy would need to grow from around $1.1 trillion this year to $3.4 trillion a year until 2030, the Paris-based agency found. Investment would advance technology, transmission and storage, among other things.

“The world isn’t investing enough to meet its future energy needs, and uncertainties over policies and demand trajectories create a strong risk of a volatile period ahead for energy markets,” the IEA report said. It added that ramping up renewables would require greatly enhanced spending in other sectors, such as mining, to produce and refine the raw materials needed for wind turbines, solar arrays and utility-scale battery storage.

The development of wind and solar farms and other renewable power sources has accelerated within the past two decades as the technologies have dropped in costs due to economies of scale, becoming more competitive with fossil-fuel based electricity generation. Global renewable energy capacity, excluding hydropower and pumped storage, topped 1.5 million megawatts last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, up from less than 55,000 megawatts in 2000.

Greener sources have gained market share in the U.S. and Europe, aided by government subsidies and other policies aimed at reducing the use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. In 2019, before the onset of the pandemic, the U.S. consumed more renewable energy than coal for the first time since 1885.

That growth is expected to continue. The world added 280,000 megawatts of renewable electricity last year, up 45% from the prior year, according to the IEA. The agency called that growth rate “the new normal” and expects similar amounts to be added this year and next year.

Still, fossil fuels make up the majority of power generation globally. Renewables accounted for 26% of global electricity generation in 2019, according to IRENA.

Heading to Glasgow

World leaders set to gather for a major climate change conference in Glasgow in two weeks are aiming to accelerate the transition to cleaner energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But they are still grappling with core questions that have complicated such negotiations for decades, including whether richer countries will pay to help poorer countries make the shift.

Supply-chain issues also constrain how quickly the world can increase wind and solar power. Most solar arrays are currently produced with energy from coal-fired power plants in China, which supplies more than three fourths of the world’s polysilicon. Some Western governments and companies are attempting to shift solar manufacturing away from coal, but that threatens to drive up solar costs.

In addition to greening the power grid, many countries are advancing policies to speed a shift to electric vehicles. That is poised to reduce the amount of oil used in transportation, which currently makes up around 60% of oil demand according to the IEA. But while nearly all major auto makers including General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG are betting big on EV production, and sales are gaining traction, adoption is expected to be gradual.

A Volkswagen assembly line producing the Volkswagen ID.3 electric car.
PHOTO: RONNY HARTMANN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
In Europe, which experienced a decline in power generation partly due to an unusual slowdown in offshore wind speeds, natural-gas prices have almost tripled in three months, leading some fertilizer makers to halt production because they can no longer produce it economically. In China, electricity shortfalls caused by high coal prices led local officials to curtail hours at some factories, affecting production of semiconductors and other key exports.

The U.S. has been less affected than other countries, but it too has seen higher prices, and concerns about further increases in winter are mounting. On Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration warned that the nearly half of American households that primarily warm their homes with natural gas will spend an average of 30% more on their bills compared with last year.

Prices of Brent crude, the global benchmark, topped $85 a barrel Friday, their highest level in three years. Traders are betting prices will continue to rise, stoking a roaring options market.

One factor weighing on crude is that gas and coal shortages are pressuring some power plant operators and manufacturers to burn oil instead.

Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco, said this month that it plans to increase its oil production capacity from 12 million to 13 million barrels a day by 2027. Rival Abu Dhabi National Oil, the main oil producer in the United Arab Emirates, said it would be spending $122 billion in part to boost its oil production capacity to five million barrels a day by the end of the decade, from about four million a day today.

Overall, OPEC estimates the world is projected to require $11.8 trillion in oil-and-gas investment through 2045 to meet growing demand. In a report released last month, it predicted its members’ oil will constitute 39% of global crude consumption in 2045, up from about 33% now.

“We are witnessing strains and conflicts related to energy affordability, energy security and reducing emissions,” said Mohammed Barkindo, OPEC’s secretary-general, in an interview last month.

California’s rocky transition

Governments trying to fast-track a transition to cleaner sources of energy are finding that it requires vast amounts of investment, and can meet unexpected obstacles. In the U.S., California is in the midst of retiring numerous fossil-fuel power plants to help decarbonize its power grid by 2045, as a state law requires.

The California Public Utilities Commission has ordered utilities to buy an unprecedented amount of renewable energy, battery storage and other carbon-free resources to fill the gap and keep up with growth in coming years: more than 14,000 megawatts, or roughly a third of the state’s forecast for peak summer demand.

While the companies are on track thus far, the California Energy Commission and the state’s grid operator recently expressed concern that the purchases may not be enough to prevent electricity shortages in the coming summers. The state is also planning to retire its last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, which generates nearly 10% of the electricity in the state, by 2025.

California has narrowly avoided rolling blackouts this year, amid wildfires that have disrupted power transmission and a severe drought that has reduced hydroelectric production throughout the West, including from the Hoover Dam.

The state’s power grid operator has called on residents to conserve power several times this summer and took emergency measures to buy additional supplies to reduce the risk of blackouts. The state also recently added four temporary natural-gas generators at power plants to help alleviate the shortage.

‘Long, long goodbye’

After years of losing money on America’s shale oil boom, which produced ample supplies but few profits, investors and Wall Street financiers alike are clamoring for companies to limit investment in future projects and return cash to them instead.

That push has stunted growth in all but one of the oil fields that fueled the shale boom. Companies like Continental Resources Inc. in North Dakota’s Bakken field and EOG Resources Inc. in South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale kicked off the boom back when oil often fetched more than $100 a barrel. But producers in those regions have drilled up some of the most prolific land and are running into limitations juicing as much oil from new wells in maturing fields. This year, oil output for almost all of the 20 largest producers in both the Eagle Ford and Bakken has stayed below pre-pandemic levels, according to data from ShaleProfile, an industry analytics platform.

“We’re starting the long, long goodbye,” Bob Fryklund, a strategist at IHS Markit, said of the Bakken and Eagle Ford plays.

The only place in the contiguous U.S. that shale companies are growing is the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico. But even there, production has yet to fully recover, and the companies dispatching more drilling rigs are typically smaller, private operators that don’t have the muscle to lift output significantly. Larger, publicly traded producers have restrained Permian activity, and only eight of the 20 top producers had output above March 2020 levels as of July, the latest ShaleProfile data show.

“We’ll be lucky to grow 5% a year over the next several years in the Lower 48 [U.S. states],” Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources Co., the largest producer in the Permian, told investors in August.

Alaskan oil production is also in sharp retreat. Many of the largest Western oil companies have pulled back from Alaska, including BP PLC, which sold its North Slope properties to closely held Hilcorp Energy in 2020 for $5.6 billion.

Last year, production in Alaska fell to an average of 448,000 barrels a day, a 20-year-low, according to the EIA. Though vast reserves of untapped oil and gas remain in the state, a combination of forces are constraining investment. One of the most significant is a lack of financing. Under pressure from environmental groups, the six largest U.S. banks have pledged in recent years not to finance additional Arctic drilling.

Wildcatter Bill Armstrong, founder of Armstrong Oil & Gas Inc., which made one the largest oil finds in U.S. history in the North Slope in 2013, argues that as long as crude demand remains strong, investors’ pullback from Alaska will only result in development in countries with less stringent regulations.

Mr. Armstrong sold his interest in the find, known as the Pikka unit, to Oil Search Ltd. for $850 million. The company, which agreed to merge with Australia’s Santos Ltd. in August, has said it had trouble lining up bank financing and is years away from production.

“It’s just been sitting there,” Mr. Armstrong said of the discovery. “It’s like its own OPEC country once it gets online. But we kind of need it now.”

—Katherine Blunt contributed to this article.

[dislaxxic]

'Brown recovery' wipes out hopes that pandemic stimulus would drive climate spending

Governments in rich countries pledged last year to spend trillions of dollars to rescue their economies from the trough of the pandemic — and to channel that gusher of cash in ways that would aid the fight against climate change.

The climate change strategy largely failed.

More than 18 months later, mounting evidence shows that the spending did little to alter the trajectory that has the planet on a path toward blowing through global emissions targets. In fact, much of the stimulus spending was directed toward a “brown” recovery that pumped money into polluting industries and energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas. Nations unleashed their spending in a way that was open to all sectors, helping their incumbent industries rather than funding the promised transformation to a clean economy.

The failure to deliver on pledges made just last year presents a grim backdrop as nearly 200 countries prepare to gather in November in Glasgow, Scotland, for the latest round of global talks to rein in greenhouse gases and cope with problems already arising from climate change. That meeting comes while much of the world faces a global energy shortage as it emerges from the pandemic that has sent prices soaring, even prompting the climate-focused White House to ask oil executives how they might tamp down fuel costs.

“The world missed an opportunity to have a green recovery,” said Alice Hill, who ran climate resilience efforts in former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council. “We hoped it would. But it didn’t.”

Recent analyses conducted by think tanks, consulting firms and international governance organizations show that the trillions of dollars were pumped into the global economy to sustain it through the worst of the pandemic. But rather than focusing on measures to eliminate carbon emissions from energy and transportation systems or help prepare countries for the effects of a warming planet, the spending flowed across many sectors of the economy that have long been contributors to climate change.

“We haven’t had enough investment,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a progressive climate hawk who has called for ending tax breaks for fossil fuels. “We have to have massive investment on electric vehicles and solar, wind and battery storage.”

..

[Farfromgeneva]

'Brown recovery' wipes out hopes that pandemic stimulus would drive climate spending

Governments in rich countries pledged last year to spend trillions of dollars to rescue their economies from the trough of the pandemic — and to channel that gusher of cash in ways that would aid the fight against climate change.

The climate change strategy largely failed.

More than 18 months later, mounting evidence shows that the spending did little to alter the trajectory that has the planet on a path toward blowing through global emissions targets. In fact, much of the stimulus spending was directed toward a “brown” recovery that pumped money into polluting industries and energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas. Nations unleashed their spending in a way that was open to all sectors, helping their incumbent industries rather than funding the promised transformation to a clean economy.

The failure to deliver on pledges made just last year presents a grim backdrop as nearly 200 countries prepare to gather in November in Glasgow, Scotland, for the latest round of global talks to rein in greenhouse gases and cope with problems already arising from climate change. That meeting comes while much of the world faces a global energy shortage as it emerges from the pandemic that has sent prices soaring, even prompting the climate-focused White House to ask oil executives how they might tamp down fuel costs.

“The world missed an opportunity to have a green recovery,” said Alice Hill, who ran climate resilience efforts in former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council. “We hoped it would. But it didn’t.”

Recent analyses conducted by think tanks, consulting firms and international governance organizations show that the trillions of dollars were pumped into the global economy to sustain it through the worst of the pandemic. But rather than focusing on measures to eliminate carbon emissions from energy and transportation systems or help prepare countries for the effects of a warming planet, the spending flowed across many sectors of the economy that have long been contributors to climate change.

“We haven’t had enough investment,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a progressive climate hawk who has called for ending tax breaks for fossil fuels. “We have to have massive investment on electric vehicles and solar, wind and battery storage.”

..

This may be correct looking backwards, accountant style, but it should be noted that the support that was made was intended to be a bridge, no one credible anticipated the labor market would be this tight and was concerned with getting people through Covid for a few months basically. And making the leap into new industry would've accelerated the wealth gap as the bridge support went to the poorest generally (notwithstanding some abuse of PPP which was a dumb program that used an old model of running stimulus through banks rather than directly and we saw how ineffective that was). My point being - sure we could've used that stimulus to invest in green energy and related but let's not ignore it would've driven people into far worse outcomes. The opportunity cost for poor people and time value of opportunity is a lot higher than affluent people so a 1-3yr setback for poor people (if not worse outcomes) is pretty damned expensive and seemingly ignored by this approach taken by Ms Hill and the authors of this piece. A parallel would be this story:

vidence on the effects of work requirements in safety net programmes
Colin Gray, Adam Leive, Elena Prager, Kelsey Pukelis, Mary Zaki 04 October 2021

Proponents of work requirements for social safety net programmes argue that they promote self-sufficiency by encouraging work, while opponents contend that they reduce benefits for the most vulnerable recipients in times of need. This column looks at the impact of the reinstatement of work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the US following a hiatus during the Great Recession. The authors find that work requirements do not appear to improve economic self-sufficiency, while substantially reducing benefits paid to programme recipients.

The US government responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with an unprecedented expansion of the social safety net. This effort is estimated to have kept 17 million people out of poverty in 2020 (Census Bureau 2021, Han et al. 2020). However, the unwinding of these temporary measures has reopened questions about the appropriate generosity of the social safety net.

At the heart of these debates is whether unconditional government aid harms society by discouraging work. Because government resources are finite, policy design must contend with how to best target support to households in times of need. Existing economic research has documented both benefits and costs of government programmes that do not make aid conditional on work (Corman et al. 2018, Dahl and Gielen 2018, Mosley 2021). In the 1990s, economists theoretically analysed how imposing barriers to receiving benefits can have the effect of steering programme dollars to those who benefit the most because they will try the hardest to overcome the barriers (Nichols and Zeckhauser 1982, Besley and Coate 1992). But this conclusion requires certain assumptions that may not hold in practice, such as assuming that the barriers are no higher for low-income people than for high-income people. Until recently, there has been little research testing these assumptions, but recent advances have shown that the assumptions often fail to hold (Deshpande and Li 2019, Homonoff and Somerville forthcoming).

Barriers to benefit receipt often take the form of work requirements, which make benefits conditional on employment. Since 1996, some form of work requirement has existed in many US means-tested programmes. Proponents argue that work requirements promote self-sufficiency by encouraging work (Editorial Board 2021). Opponents contend that the primary effect of work requirements is to reduce benefits for the most vulnerable recipients in times of need (Bernstein and Spielberg 2017).

In new work, we evaluate the competing narratives about the effects of work requirements for receipt of safety net benefits (Gray et al. 2021). We focus on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly known as Food Stamps), which reached 39.9 million Americans in 2020 (USDA 2021). We examine the effect of SNAP’s work requirements on benefit receipt and labour market outcomes when work requirements were reinstated following a multi-year hiatus during the Great Recession.

In SNAP, certain adults are required to work in order to receive benefits for more than a few months. The work requirement can be satisfied by engaging in paid employment, participating in qualifying job training programs, or doing approved community service for at least 80 hours each month. These requirements apply to childless adults who are able-bodied and younger than 50. If they do not meet these requirements, they can only receive benefits for a maximum of three months within a three-year period. The requirements disappear for people aged 50 or older, who do not have time limits on how long they can receive SNAP benefits.

Our research design leveraged this sharp change in time limits at age 50. Our analytic sample included childless adults both younger and older than 50 who were on SNAP in Virginia during the 2009–2013 period, when work requirements were suspended for everyone. When requirements were reinstated in 2013, nothing changed for SNAP recipients who were already 50 or older. Younger recipients, however, now stood to lose their benefits after just a few months unless they met the work requirements. We therefore compared what happened to recipients just under age 50 and just over age 50 following the reinstatement of work requirements until the end of 2015. The difference in outcomes between these groups reveals the effects of the policy.

Critics of work requirements claim that the primary effect of this policy is to take away government assistance from vulnerable people. To evaluate this claim, we examined how many people continued to receive SNAP benefits after work requirements were reinstated. In this and other analyses, we used administrative data from the state of Virginia. The state allowed us to link individuals’ longitudinal SNAP program records to their employment and wage records.

We found that recipients who faced work requirements in 2013 were substantially more likely to leave SNAP within 18 months than their older counterparts who did not face work requirements. Figure 1 displays this result graphically. The vertical axis shows the fraction of recipients still receiving SNAP, as a function of their age when work requirements were reinstated. Among recipients who had just turned 50, 63% were still receiving SNAP benefits 18 months later (solid line to the right of the red vertical line). By contrast, we estimate that fewer than 40% of their counterparts just under age 50 were still receiving benefits at that time (dotted line to the left of the red vertical line).1,2 These results are estimated by analysing only incumbent programme participants. When instead analysing aggregate programme use, we estimate that work requirements reduced the overall number of people receiving benefits by 53%.

The validity of these estimates would be called into question if recipients who were just under age 50 were substantially different from recipients slightly older than 50. For example, eligibility criteria for disability insurance also loosen at age 50. Receipt of disability benefits changes labour market opportunities and income, and may therefore indirectly affect SNAP utilisation independent of the work requirements. To check whether the large difference in SNAP benefit receipt (see Figure 1) could be explained by such factors, we repeated our analysis using data from 2011 instead of 2013. During this time period, all SNAP recipients were exempt from work requirements regardless of age, so we can measure the differences in benefit receipt around age 50 caused by factors other than work requirements. Figure 2 shows there was no difference in benefit receipt across the age 50 threshold during this time period.3

Our findings that work requirements remove government aid from many would-be recipients are exactly the concerns raised by critics of the policy. However, proponents of work requirements would point out that losing benefits may be a good thing for former recipients. The purpose of work requirements is to encourage people to become economically self-sufficient by incentivizing work. It is possible that recipients under age 50 leave SNAP not because they are unable to meet work requirements, but because responding to work requirements causes their employment income to rise above the SNAP eligibility income cut-off. If that is the case, then work requirements could be helpful to both recipients and taxpayers.

We found little support for this hypothesis. First, our analyses suggest that loss of benefits is disproportionately higher among those recipients under 50 who face the largest barriers to working. Specifically, work requirements cause homeless people to lose benefits at a higher rate than other SNAP recipients.4 Second, we checked directly whether work requirements caused the recipients under 50 to work at higher rates than the older recipients. We found no detectable difference in the fraction of recipients who have jobs on either side of the age 50 threshold. Figure 3 shows this result graphically. In contrast to our findings for benefit receipt, the impact on having a job is either quite small or zero. The only potential improvement in labour market outcomes that we observed was an increase in earnings for a small fraction of recipients near a key income eligibility threshold, but even this result was statistically fragile. In sum, we found little to no effect of SNAP work requirements on economic self-sufficiency, but large negative effects on benefit receipt.

As currently designed, SNAP work requirements do not appear to improve economic self-sufficiency while substantially reducing benefits paid to SNAP recipients. On one hand, this makes work requirements costly to society. On the other hand, work requirements save taxpayers money by reducing the number of people receiving benefits. This sets up a trade-off between savings to taxpayers and harm to would-be SNAP recipients. We analysed this trade-off, accounting for the impact on government budgets.5 The analysis showed that SNAP without work requirements would likely be more effective than other existing programmes at channelling public spending to low-income adults.

Debates are likely to continue regarding the shape and scope of the safety net. In designing off-ramps from the Covid-19 expansions, policymakers should consider the evidence: work requirements do more to remove people from benefits than to bolster employment.

Authors’ note: Mary Zaki is an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Maryland and Financial Economist at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Work on this paper was conducted while Mary Zaki was employed by the University of Maryland. The analysis, conclusions, and opinions set forth here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or Wayfair.

[jhu72]

China on the verge of a solar power tipping point.

[youthathletics]

While Exxon is digging in on fossil fuels and deluding itself into believing that the gigantic meteor strike known as climate change won’t change much soon, other major oil producers like BP are wagering that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will occur faster than most people believe. As history has shown, investing in the future could mean lost profits in the present. It is usually the visionary companies that invest early which will survive. I would not be surprised to see Exxon struggling to survive within 15 years.

BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney, who took office in February 2020, is gambling that BP can make the clean-energy transition much faster than its peers. Last year, he became the first major oil CEO to announce that he would purposely cut future production. He aims to slash BP's output by 40%, or about 1 million barrels per day, an amount equal to the UK's entire daily output in 2019. At the same time, BP would boost its capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources to 50 gigawatts, a 20-fold increase and equivalent to the power produced by 50 U.S. nuclear plants.

… To hit those targets, Looney plans $25 billion in fossil-fuel asset sales by 2025. That's equivalent to about 13% of the company's total fixed assets at the end of 2019. Under his watch, BP has already sold legacy projects worth about $15 billion. In addition to the Oman deal, Looney unloaded oil and gas fields in Alaska and the North Sea and sold off BP's entire petrochemical operation, which produced a $402 million profit in 2019.

… The company acknowledged that its fast-growing clean-energy business - including its solar, EV-charging and wind ventures - continues to lose money. BP does not expect profits from those businesses until at least 2025.

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustai ... 021-09-20/

DocBarrister

This may be why...it costs more than combustion engine, currently: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compani ... np1taskbar

[Farfromgeneva]

While Exxon is digging in on fossil fuels and deluding itself into believing that the gigantic meteor strike known as climate change won’t change much soon, other major oil producers like BP are wagering that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will occur faster than most people believe. As history has shown, investing in the future could mean lost profits in the present. It is usually the visionary companies that invest early which will survive. I would not be surprised to see Exxon struggling to survive within 15 years.

BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney, who took office in February 2020, is gambling that BP can make the clean-energy transition much faster than its peers. Last year, he became the first major oil CEO to announce that he would purposely cut future production. He aims to slash BP's output by 40%, or about 1 million barrels per day, an amount equal to the UK's entire daily output in 2019. At the same time, BP would boost its capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources to 50 gigawatts, a 20-fold increase and equivalent to the power produced by 50 U.S. nuclear plants.

… To hit those targets, Looney plans $25 billion in fossil-fuel asset sales by 2025. That's equivalent to about 13% of the company's total fixed assets at the end of 2019. Under his watch, BP has already sold legacy projects worth about $15 billion. In addition to the Oman deal, Looney unloaded oil and gas fields in Alaska and the North Sea and sold off BP's entire petrochemical operation, which produced a $402 million profit in 2019.

… The company acknowledged that its fast-growing clean-energy business - including its solar, EV-charging and wind ventures - continues to lose money. BP does not expect profits from those businesses until at least 2025.

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustai ... 021-09-20/

DocBarrister

This may be why...it costs more than combustion engine, currently: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compani ... np1taskbar

Scrubbers look more interesting at the moment w Nat gas at $5+/mmbtu

[youthathletics]

While Exxon is digging in on fossil fuels and deluding itself into believing that the gigantic meteor strike known as climate change won’t change much soon, other major oil producers like BP are wagering that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will occur faster than most people believe. As history has shown, investing in the future could mean lost profits in the present. It is usually the visionary companies that invest early which will survive. I would not be surprised to see Exxon struggling to survive within 15 years.

BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney, who took office in February 2020, is gambling that BP can make the clean-energy transition much faster than its peers. Last year, he became the first major oil CEO to announce that he would purposely cut future production. He aims to slash BP's output by 40%, or about 1 million barrels per day, an amount equal to the UK's entire daily output in 2019. At the same time, BP would boost its capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources to 50 gigawatts, a 20-fold increase and equivalent to the power produced by 50 U.S. nuclear plants.

… To hit those targets, Looney plans $25 billion in fossil-fuel asset sales by 2025. That's equivalent to about 13% of the company's total fixed assets at the end of 2019. Under his watch, BP has already sold legacy projects worth about $15 billion. In addition to the Oman deal, Looney unloaded oil and gas fields in Alaska and the North Sea and sold off BP's entire petrochemical operation, which produced a $402 million profit in 2019.

… The company acknowledged that its fast-growing clean-energy business - including its solar, EV-charging and wind ventures - continues to lose money. BP does not expect profits from those businesses until at least 2025.

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustai ... 021-09-20/

DocBarrister

This may be why...it costs more than combustion engine, currently: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compani ... np1taskbar

Scrubbers look more interesting at the moment w Nat gas at $5+/mmbtu

Interesting....

[jhu72]

Islam enters the space race.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://spectra.mhi.com/can-nuclear-fus ... 9d5766a639

[cradleandshoot]

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Chi ... 571927.php

So the Chicoms give the middle finger to saving the planet. Greta needs to give them a stern lecture. She could hold her breath until her face turns blue.

[dislaxxic]

Why Hertz’s big Tesla deal is such a blockbuster

Tesla became a trillion-dollar company this week after the announcement of a massive deal with Hertz. The rental car company said it would purchase 100,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans by the end of 2022, and that sent Tesla’s stock price north of $1,000 a share. Two days later, Hertz revealed that Uber has committed to renting as many as half of these electric vehicles to its ride-share drivers. Hertz even recruited Tom Brady to promote its new fleet.

These developments are clearly good for Tesla, and they bode well for the EV industry as a whole. But the other companies involved are making riskier bets. Hertz is spending an estimated $4.2 billion under the assumption that, when its Tesla rentals become available next month, the cars will be so desirable that its customers will pay higher rates for what the company says will be a “premium and differentiated rental experience.” Hertz has said that the cost of renting a Tesla will be “similar” to its premium and luxury car rates, which vary based on pick-up location and the reservation date. For reference, renting a Jaguar XF sedan, which costs roughly the same as a new Tesla Model 3, at New York’s LaGuardia Airport costs upward of $300 a day before taxes and fees.

..

[Farfromgeneva]

Why Hertz’s big Tesla deal is such a blockbuster

Tesla became a trillion-dollar company this week after the announcement of a massive deal with Hertz. The rental car company said it would purchase 100,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans by the end of 2022, and that sent Tesla’s stock price north of $1,000 a share. Two days later, Hertz revealed that Uber has committed to renting as many as half of these electric vehicles to its ride-share drivers. Hertz even recruited Tom Brady to promote its new fleet.

These developments are clearly good for Tesla, and they bode well for the EV industry as a whole. But the other companies involved are making riskier bets. Hertz is spending an estimated $4.2 billion under the assumption that, when its Tesla rentals become available next month, the cars will be so desirable that its customers will pay higher rates for what the company says will be a “premium and differentiated rental experience.” Hertz has said that the cost of renting a Tesla will be “similar” to its premium and luxury car rates, which vary based on pick-up location and the reservation date. For reference, renting a Jaguar XF sedan, which costs roughly the same as a new Tesla Model 3, at New York’s LaGuardia Airport costs upward of $300 a day before taxes and fees.

..

Hertz CEO, like AMC, is hip to the meme Reddit Robin Hood investor crowd and that’s why they’re doing this. They were going to raise capital while in BK and jam these retail investors with the losses until a judge stopped it. This piece is total narrative fallacy nonsense, they’re playing to the retail investor crowd as even out of reorg they’re still effectively a “penny stock” type company.

It’s not that big an order in the grand scheme and added like tens of billions to Tesla’s market cap. It’s all retail investor, meme it IIT lqiudity flush world driven.

And…Hertz and the rental car companies still make their money selling sued cars far more than their rental operations. The whole industry was a dumping ground for crap models for the auto manufacturers for most of their existence.

[PizzaSnake]

Tick tock.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... estruction

[Farfromgeneva]

Tick tock.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... estruction

Still think you’d appreciate this book.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile_(book)

And TLD talked me into checking out a Netflix show black
Mirror, been hitting an episode or two at night last week-week and a half. It twists the benefits of post modern society with the negative outcomes being the focus at the end of each episode which is anthology style.

[PizzaSnake]

Tick tock.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... estruction

Still think you’d appreciate this book.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile_(book)

And TLD talked me into checking out a Netflix show black
Mirror, been hitting an episode or two at night last week-week and a half. It twists the benefits of post modern society with the negative outcomes being the focus at the end of each episode which is anthology style.

Watched “Metalhead” yet? My favorite for dystopian porn. Season 4, episode 5.

[Farfromgeneva]

Tick tock.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... estruction

Still think you’d appreciate this book.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile_(book)

And TLD talked me into checking out a Netflix show black
Mirror, been hitting an episode or two at night last week-week and a half. It twists the benefits of post modern society with the negative outcomes being the focus at the end of each episode which is anthology style.

Watched “Metalhead” yet? My favorite for dystopian porn. Season 4, episode 5.

No just finished the Star Trek type one which i believe is beginning of season 4. Was thinking a lot of this is covered in various ways by Vonnegut but in visual medium it’s fairly good.

[jhu72]

Interesting climate change history note.

[youthathletics]

Interesting climate change history note.

I'd be interested to see what scientists monitored and measured during the 2020 year. A year in which we saw likely ~75% of vehicles off the road, few rush hours comparatively, factories mostly silent, planes grounded, etc. With all our instrumentation there should have been a takeaway and a story that can be told.

[dislaxxic]

This Is Where the First Climate Wars Will Break Out

..

[cradleandshoot]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -jets.html

Greta would never approve. how many billionaires does it take to save the planet?