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A similar drop in mortgage rates a year ago to even lower rates didn’t turn up sales volume either – on the contrary.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The dream is, or was, that mortgage rates dropped enough in November and December to push potential home buyers out of their buyers’ strike and to sally forth and start bidding wars all over again, so that we could amuse ourselves with headlines touting the new craze, while millennials and GenZers are trampling all over each other to outbid each other and to drive up prices to make each other miserable, so that sellers could maximize their gains. The media just loves touting this kind of stuff.

And mortgage rates dropped a whole bunch, and new listings are now suddenly showing up in larger numbers than a year ago, but buyers not so much. Clearly, mortgage rates haven’t dropped to the magic level yet, folks are waiting for them to drop further, and the market remains frozen.

Pending home sales – a forward-looking indicator of sales of existing homes, based on contract signings – in November were unchanged from October, and both occupy the second-lowest historic low, after the historic low in April 2020, according to the national Association of Realtors today. So this is not exactly what people figured in their wildest dreams (data via YCharts):

The NAR defines a “pending sale” as a transaction where the contract was signed but it has not yet closed. At this point, the deal can still fall through for a variety of reasons. If all goes well, the sale usually closes “within one or two months of signing.”

The index value was set at 100 for contract signings in 2001. Today’s value of 71.6 is down 28.4% from the index average in 2001. Compared to the prior Novembers, the index value of contract signings plunged…

By 5% from the already collapsed levels of November 2022
By 40% from November 2021
By 43% from November 2020
By 34% from November 2019.

Applications for mortgages to purchase a home dipped in the latest week, after inching up a few weeks in a row, according to the latest weekly data released on December 20 by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

And these purchase mortgage applications remain at totally collapsed levels, down by 18% from the already collapsed levels in the same week in 2022, down by 48% from the same week in 2021, and down by 43% from the same week in 2019.

Mortgage rates have dropped a lot, but not nearly enough to hit that magic level that restarts the whole zoo all over again, apparently.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate ticked down to 6.61% in the latest reporting week, from 6.67% in the prior week, according to Freddie Mac today. Today’s average is down by 118 basis points from the peak of 7.79% in the week at the end of October.

Ironically, there was a similar drop (101 basis points) a year ago, to even lower rates of just above 6%, and it didn’t turn up volume either – on the contrary.

The issue with the frozen market for existing homes isn’t the mortgage rate – it’s the price of the home that people want to buy. Prices have shot sky-high over the past few years, from already very high levels, and the solution is lower prices. A continued buyers’ strike goes a long way to making that happen. And in some markets, that’s already happening.

Homebuilders who have to sell their homes and cannot sit out this market have figured this out. They’re building smaller homes with fewer amenities to get prices down, and as their incentive to induce people to buy those smaller and cheaper homes, they’re also buying down mortgage rates which takes the place of other incentives they would normally offer.

And so sales of new houses have not collapsed to historic lows – unlike existing homes – but are at the muddling-through levels of the years before the pandemic. Homeowners who want to sell should keep an eye on the market for new houses because that’s where their competition is, and that competition is getting fairly aggressive to try to sell new homes.

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Quantitative tightening powers along in the euro area.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Under the ECB’s QT program, kicked off in October 2022, total assets have plunged by €1.94 trillion, or by 21.9%, to €6.90 trillion, the lowest since November 2020, according to the ECB’s weekly balance sheet released today. This includes the €88-billion drop in the latest reporting week.

In USD, the ECB has now shed roughly $2.14 trillion in assets at the current exchange rate. By comparison, the Fed has shed $1.23 trillion in assets.

During the pandemic, the ECB piled on €4.15 trillion in assets; it has now shed 47% of that pile.

The ECB engaged in QE via two categories, and both are getting unwound, but at a very different pace:

It offered loans under very favorable conditions to banks, and it was up to the banks to deploy this cash.
It purchased government bonds, corporate bonds, covered bonds, and asset-backed securities, thereby handing the financial markets this cash, under two programs: APP (asset purchase programme), starting in 2014; and PEPP (pandemic emergency purchase programme), starting in March 2020.

In October 2022, the ECB announced the first steps of QT. It made the loan terms unattractive, and it opened more windows for banks to pay back those loans, which caused the banks to pay back those loans in big waves, which removed liquidity via the banks.

In December 2022, the ECB announced the initial phase of its bond QT with a start date in March 2023. It has since then accelerated the pace of the bond-roll-off, and announced a further acceleration at its December meeting.

Loan QT: -€1.79 trillion

The ECB has always handled QE via waves of loans, starting with the Financial Crisis, then the Euro Debt Crisis, then the period of no-crisis, and finally the pandemic. The waves had names, at first: Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (LTRO), then Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO), and these waves were numbered. During the pandemic, the ECB’s lending operations were called TLTRO III.

These pandemic-era TLTRO III loans amounted to €1.6 trillion at the peak, on top of the still outstanding prior loans, to total €2.2 trillion at the peak between June 2021 and June 2022.

In the week of the current balance sheet through December 22, banks paid back €98 billion in loans. Since the peak, they paid back €1.79 trillion, with only €405 billion in loans still outstanding.

Bond QT: -€262 billion

The ECB had bought bonds under two programs: APP, starting in 2014; and PEPP, starting in March 2020.

APP bonds: The roll-off in 2023 was limited to the bonds in the APP portfolio, and for the first six months was capped. But in July, the cap was removed. Since then, APP bonds have been rolling off without replacement as they mature. So whatever matures and gets paid off, that’s the amount by which the APP portfolio declines. Current APP holdings: €3.02 trillion.

PEPP bonds have been kept steady since the end of QE. But at its December meeting, the ECB announced that its PEPP bonds will start to roll off in July 2024, capped at €7.5 billion a month. At the end of 2024, the cap will be removed, and whatever matures in the PEPP portfolio will then come off the balance sheet. Current PEPP holdings: €1.71 trillion.

Over the past four weeks, €14 billion in APP bonds rolled off (holiday periods are slow in terms of maturity dates, with the bond market shut down entirely before Christmas). For a feel for the pace of the roll-off: over the prior 4-week periods, respectively, €19 billion, €45 billion, and €30 billion rolled off.

Since the peak, €262 billion in bonds rolled off. APP bonds did all the lifting. PEPP bonds have remained steady. The entire bond portfolio is now down to €4.70 trillion, the lowest since December 2021:

QT for years to get a grip on inflation.

The December 2023 meeting has been typical since the October 2022 announcement of QT: Each step along the way, QT was accelerated, to what is now the most QT of any major central bank.

QT is a program that is expected to run for years on automatic pilot in the back ground. The ECB’s policy-rate decisions and the surrounding jabbering – same with the Fed’s policy-rate decisions and surrounding jabbering – get all the speculative attention. But QT runs without drama in the background, removing liquidity month after month from the financial system, and thereby removing some of the inflationary fuel.

The hope is that this ongoing QT will allow central banks to not lift rates as high as they would have before the arrival of huge balance sheets. In other words, the hope is that central banks can leverage QT to get a handle on inflation without having to jack up rates so high that they would break the economy.

The massive QE via loans and bond purchases, which pushed down long-term yields, and the negative interest rate policy, which pushed down short-term yields, caused asset prices to spike in Europe, including home prices in Germany. But QT and higher rates have now begun to reverse that process. Here are German home prices, which are now tanking after a huge spike, versus the ECB’s balance sheet.

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When wind turbine companies seek permission to harm sea life, reporters for The Associated Press blame The Heritage Foundation (where I work) and the Heartland Institute, instead of reporting the facts.

It was a Chico Marx moment: “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

The misleading AP article—carried by WBTS-TV in  Boston; The Daily Star newspaper of Oneonta, N.Y.; and WTFX-TV in Philadelphia, among others—stated that “scientists say there is no credible evidence linking offshore wind farms to whale deaths” and that “offshore wind opponents are using unsupported claims about harm to whales to try to stop projects, with some of the loudest opposition centered in New Jersey.”

The article accuses opponents of causing “angst in coastal communities, where developers need to build shoreside infrastructure to operate a wind farm.”

If so, why are offshore wind farm companies asking Uncle Sam for permission to harm ocean mammals, and why are dead whales washing up on East Coast beaches?

According to AP reporters Christina Larson, Jennifer McDermott, Patrick Whittle and Wayne Parry, “One vocal opponent of offshore wind is The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the foundation’s center for energy, climate and environment, wrote in November that Danish company Ørsted’s scrapped New Jersey wind project was “unsightly” and “a threat to wildlife.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

If the four reporters had done their homework, they would have mentioned that in required environmental-impact filings with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, companies explain that sounds generated by their activities will harm ocean mammals.

For example, Atlantic Shores and Ørsted’s Ocean Winds both requested permission to harm ocean mammals in their applications for New Jersey offshore-wind projects. And, since boats ramped up offshore surveys in May 2022, 31 dead whales have washed up on New Jersey and surrounding beaches.

Ørsted, which in November pulled out of a proposed New Jersey offshore wind farm, requested permission to harm 30 whales, 3,231 dolphins, 82 porpoises, and eight seals through sound waves generated by its surveys—although the company claims that the damage would be negligible.

The precise numbers and detailed species can be found on the website of the NOAA, in Ørsted’s Application for Incidental Harassment Authorization (Table 9).

Atlantic Shores, owned by Dutch Shell oil and French EDF, is still seeking permission to locate an offshore wind farm in New Jersey. In its Request for Incidental Harassment (Table 6-3) it stated that acoustic waves associated with the siting of the wind turbines would likely affect 10 whales, 662 dolphins, 206 porpoises, and 546 seals (also termed a negligible amount). It received permission to harm these marine animals.

Although the companies describe effects as “negligible,” the NOAA website states that it’s difficult to measure the effects of manmade sounds on mammals.

“Acoustic trauma, which could result from close exposure to loud human-produced sounds, is very challenging to assess, particularly with any amount of decomposition,” or damage to the whale’s body, states NOAA on its website.

Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for the NOAA, wrote in a letter to Brian Hooker, lead biologist at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: “The development of offshore wind poses risks to these species [right whales], which is magnified in southern New England waters due to species abundance and distribution … . However, unlike vessel traffic and noise, which can be mitigated to some extent, oceanographic impacts from installed and operating turbines cannot be mitigated for the 30-year life span of the project, unless they are decommissioned.”

In addition, the AP article made no mention that some of the companies that would install these wind farms are owned by Denmark, the Netherlands and France—despite the fact that renewable energy tax credits in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act are aimed at stimulating domestic firms to produce renewable energy. And there was no mention that New Jersey offshore wind farms would have practically no effect on mitigating global temperatures, either now or by 2100.

Local municipalities are increasingly rejecting wind farms, according to a Renewable Rejections Database tracker maintained by environmental scholar Robert Bryce. He reports that 417 wind farms and 190 solar arrays have been rejected by local communities in 2023. More than 600 projects have been rejected in 2023, up from 489 in 2022 and 208 in 2018.

Proponents of renewable energy are trying to gloss over its harms and exaggerate its benefits in an attempt to push costly offshore wind farms. For the record, French- and Dutch-owned Atlantic Shores and Danish-owned Ørsted asked permission to hurt whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals.

Americans in New Jersey and elsewhere oppose that environmental damage.

Source: Dailysignal.com

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The 60th US presidential election, which will unfold in 2024, will be quite unlike any that has gone before as the US, and the rest of the world, braces for a contest amid fears of eroding democracy and the looming threat of authoritarianism.

It will be a fight marked by numerous unwanted firsts as the oldest president in the country’s history is likely to face the first former US president to stand trial on criminal charges. A once aspirational nation will continue its plunge into anxiety and divisions about crime, immigration, race, foreign wars and the cost of living.

Democrat Joe Biden, 81, is preparing for the kind of gruelling campaign he was able to avoid during coronavirus lockdowns in 2020. Republican Donald Trump will spend some of his campaign in a courtroom and has vowed authoritarian-style retribution if he wins. For voters it is a time of stark choices, unique spectacles and simmering danger.

“It feels to me as if America is sitting on a powder keg and the fuse has been lit,” said Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “The protective shield that all democracies and social orders rely on – legitimacy of the governing body, some level of elite responsibility, the willingness of citizens to view their neighbors in a civic way – is in an advanced stage of decline or collapse.

“It’s quite possible that the powder keg that America’s sitting on will explode over the course of 2024.”

US politics entered a new, turbulent era with Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. The businessman and reality TV star, tapping into populist rage against the establishment, was the first president with no prior political or military experience. His chaotic four-year presidency was scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic and ended with a bitter defeat by Biden in a 2020 election that was itself billed as an unprecedented stress test of democracy.

Trump never accepted the result and his attempts to overturn it culminated in a deadly riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, and his second impeachment. He has spent three years plotting revenge and describes the 5 November election as “the final battle”. But he is running for president under the shadow of 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions, knowing that regaining the White House might be his best hope of avoiding prison – a calculus that could make him and his supporters more desperate and volatile than ever.

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, said: “This is the most astounding election I have ever seen.

“We have never had an election where a likely major party nominee is indicted for major felony charges of the most serious nature; this is not shoplifting. He’s being charged with an attempt to destroy our democracy and subverting our national security. Both in terms of Trump’s personal morality and his incredibly serious crimes, we have never seen anything remotely like this.”

First Trump must win the Republican primary against Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, putting the electoral and legal calendars on a collision course. On 16 January, a day after the Iowa caucuses kick off the Republican nomination process, Trump faces a defamation trial brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who has already won a $5m judgment against him after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

On 4 March, Trump is due in court in Washington in a federal case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election result. The following day is Super Tuesday, when more than 15 states are scheduled to hold Republican primaries, the biggest delegate haul of the campaign.

On 25 March, Trump also faces state charges in New York over hush-money payments to an adult film star, although the judge has acknowledged he may postpone that because of the federal trial. On 5 August, prosecutors have asked to start an election fraud trial in Georgia, less than three weeks after Trump is likely to have been nominated by the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Trump is hard at work to flip his legal troubles to his political advantage, contending that he is a victim of a Democratic deep state conspiracy. He frequently tells his supporters: “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you – and I’m just standing in their way.” His Georgia mugshot has been slapped on T-shirts and other merchandise like a lucrative badge of honor.

Joe Biden speaks at an event to tout a new bridge over the Ohio River in Covington, Kentucky, on 4 January 2023. Despite legislative successes, including an infrastructure law, opinion polls suggest voters have given him little credit. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

It seems to be working, at least according to a series of opinion polls that show Trump leading Biden in a hypothetical matchup. A survey in early December for the Wall Street Journal newspaper showed Trump ahead by four points, 47% to 43%. When five potential third-party and independent candidates were included, Trump’s lead over Biden expanded to six points, 37% to 31%.

To Democrats, such figures are bewildering. Biden’s defenders point to his record, including the creation of 14m jobs, strong GDP growth and four major legislative victories on coronavirus relief, infrastructure, domestic production of computer chips and the biggest climate action in history. He has also led the western alliance against Russian aggression in Ukraine.

 It’s just amazing: I’ve never seen a president do so much and get so little mileage on it

Lichtman added: “He gets credit for nothing. It’s just amazing: I’ve never seen a president do so much and get so little mileage on it. He has more domestic accomplishments than any American president since the 1960s. He’s presided over an amazing economic recovery, a far better economy than was under Donald Trump even before the pandemic in terms of jobs, wages, GDP. Inflation has gone down by two-thirds.

“It was Biden who single-handedly put together the coalition of the west that stopped [Vladimir] Putin from quickly overtaking Ukraine. He seems to get no credit for any of this whatsoever and that’s partly his own fault and the fault of the Democratic party. The Democratic party has been horrible for some time now – at least 15 years. Republicans are so much better at messaging.”

The president’s approval rating has been stubbornly low since around the time of the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. He is grappling with record numbers of migrants entering the country – an issue that increasingly aggravates states beyond the US-Mexico border. His refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is costing him some support among progressives and young people.

The latest Democratic messaging salvo – “Bidenomics” – appears to have been a flop at a moment when many voters blame him for rising prices and a cost-of-living crisis. For all the barrage of positive economic data, Americans are lacking the feelgood factor.

Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said: “People feel that Biden overpromised and underdelivered and ultimately what it came down to was he didn’t make me feel good while he did it and he didn’t make it look easy.”

Abortion rights supporters in Columbus, Ohio, celebrate winning the referendum on a measure to enshrine a right to abortion in the state’s constitution on 7 November 2023. Reproductive rights could be a key vote winner for Democrats. Photograph: Megan Jelinger/AFP/Getty Images

Biden still holds a potential ace in the hole. Democrats plan to make abortion central to the 2024 campaign, with opinion polls showing most Americans do not favor strict limits on reproductive rights. The party is hoping threats to those rights will encourage millions of women and independents to vote their way next year. It is also seeking to put measures enshrining access to abortion in state constitutions on as many ballots as possible.

The issue has flummoxed Republicans, with some concerned the party has gone too far with state-level restrictions since the supreme court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling last year, ending constitutional protection for abortion. Trump has taken notice and is conspicuously trying to be vague on the issue.

 They must make the contrast between a Biden America and a Trump America and ask people which America do they want to live in

The Wall Street Journal poll found Biden leading Trump on abortion and democracy by double digits. But it gave Trump a double-digit lead on the economy, inflation, crime, border security, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and physical and mental fitness for office. Biden still has time to reshape perceptions but even close allies concede that he is not an inspirational speechmaker like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. How can he turn it around?

Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: “My advice would be to be aggressive, go on offence and set the narrative. They must make the contrast between a Biden America and a Trump America and ask people which America do they want to live in.

“A year out, most people are not paying attention so the polls are meaningless in that they are not predictive of what will happen in a year. Where they do have value is what the trend line shows, which is that the American people are not getting the messaging clearly enough now, so it’s time to get up off their asses and activate the campaign at level 10 right now.”

Setmayer, a senior adviser to the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project, added: “What Donald Trump is telegraphing, what he plans to do to this country, I don’t fully think most Americans understand.

“Use the power of incumbency, of the bully pulpit, of their record. Biden is surrounded by people who are experienced campaign veterans and so is he. Use it.”

Questions of Biden’s age have dogged his re-election bid. It now appears too late in this cycle to stand aside for a younger generation, such as the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Should Trump prevail, numerous critics have warned that his return would hollow out American democracy and presage a drift towards Hungarian-style authoritarianism. In a recent interview on Fox News, Trump was asked: “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse this power as retribution against anybody?” He did not give an outright denial but replied airily: “Except for day one.”

Should Biden serve a second term, he will be 86 when he leaves office. Dean Phillips, 54, a congressman from Minnesota, mounting a Democratic primary challenge, is calling for a new generation of leadership. Some Democrats privately wish that Biden had declared mission accomplished after the 2022 midterm elections and stepped down to make way for younger contenders such as Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer. It now appears too late.

 If I were a Democratic strategist, I would have been arrested for begging him to accept four years and move on. You can’t fix age

Frank Luntz, a prominent consultant and pollster, said: “Democrats should be apoplectic. Donald Trump has been indicted in felony after felony. The economy is relatively OK and yet Biden is sinking every week and it’s because of something that no soundbite and no messaging can fix: his age. If I were a Democratic strategist, I would have been arrested in front of the White House for begging him to accept four years and move on. You can’t fix age.”

Biden’s potential for gaffes was limited during the pandemic election; this time he will be expected to travel far and wide, his every misstep amplified by rightwing media. The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is now owned by Elon Musk and populated by extremists such as Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones. This has also been dubbed the first “AI election”, with deepfakes threatening to accelerate the spread of disinformation – a tempting target for foreign interference.

A demonstrator by the name of Cowboy Barbie, with an AR-15 rifle, protests against Biden’s inauguration, in Carson City, Nevada, on 16 January 2021. Political polarisation and the threat of violence have not abated since. Photograph: Sopa Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

It is unfolding in a febrile atmosphere of conspiracy theories, polarisation, gun violence and surging antisemitism and Islamophobia. Political opponents are increasingly framed as mortal enemies. Violence erupted on January 6 and again last year when a man broke into the home of the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacked her husband with a hammer.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “If you have something like the last couple of elections where it’s razor thin, and people who don’t understand the American electoral process see malfeasance and misfeasance where there is none, we have a very non-trivial chance of violence.

“I wouldn’t even presume that we wouldn’t have an outbreak of sporadic violence before that. The fact is when people see each other as the enemy, and talk about each other as the enemy, people who are mentally unbalanced and have access to firearms will do mentally unbalanced things.”

Luntz does not foresee violence.

But nor is he optimistic about the future of a nation torn between hope and fear. “What I do expect is a fraying no longer at the edges but at the heart of American democracy,” he said. “I’m afraid that we are reaching the point of no return. In my conversations with senators and congressmen every day I’m on the Hill – it doesn’t matter which party – we all agree that it’s not coming, it’s here, and no one knows what to do about it.”

Source: Amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org

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A new law in Seattle marks the latest in a wave of local efforts to electrify homes and other buildings. Under the city’s Building Emissions Performance Standard, signed into law last week, all existing commercial and multifamily residential buildings over 20,000 square feet will need to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Meeting that target will effectively require building owners to replace oil and gas-powered furnaces, water heaters, gas stoves, and other appliances with electric alternatives like heat pumps and induction stoves. Buildings in Seattle generate 37 percent of the city’s total emissions, and the new law is expected to slash that number by more than a quarter.

Seattle’s ordinance reflects a growing push to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in buildings, which would reduce indoor air pollution and cut carbon emissions. But some other local electrification policies have hit a wall. In April, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Berkeley, California’s first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas in new buildings. The ruling caused several cities across the 9th Circuit region, which spans 11 western states and territories including California, Oregon, and Washington, to suspend similar policies. Yet despite the setback, clean energy experts told Grist that governments still have plenty of options to electrify buildings. Cities and states like Seattle; Ashland, Oregon; and Washington state are sidestepping Berkeley’s legal challenges by finding creative alternatives to banning gas outright — including by setting emissions targets, updating building codes, and restricting indoor air pollution.

“Elected officials’ and regulators’ resolve to address this issue has not gone away,” said Dylan Plummer, a senior field organizing strategist with the Sierra Club. “They just need to work through new avenues that are legally defensible.”

In 2019, Berkeley became the first city in the country to ban new buildings from connecting to natural gas lines. The California Restaurant Association quickly mobilized to file a lawsuit against the city for its policy. In 2021, a federal district court ruled against the restaurant industry, but in April 2023, a panel of three judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s decision, shooting down Berkeley’s ordinance. The judges ruled that because national efficiency standards for appliances under the federal Energy Policy Conservation Act prevent cities and states from setting their own standards, local governments can’t ban infrastructure to prevent the use of fossil fuel-powered appliances.

Outside the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, in 2017. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

“The decision does not make a lot of sense legally,” Jan Hasselman, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, wrote at the time. Since the ruling, other cities in California, including Encinitas, Santa Cruz, and San Luis Obispo, have pulled back their own natural gas bans. Eugene, which was the first city in Oregon to adopt a natural gas ban modeling Berkeley’s, also suspended its ordinance in June. The Berkeley city attorney’s office has requested a rehearing of the case before 11 judges on the 9th Circuit, which could result in a new decision.

In the meantime, Hasselman told Grist that building emissions standards like the one passed in Seattle are one way for cities to dodge legal hurdles by avoiding an explicit ban on gas. The Seattle policy sets benchmarks that ramp up every five years for large buildings to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and lets building owners decide how they want to reach those standards. Theoretically, they could hold onto their oil and gas appliances, though Plummer pointed out that avoiding electrification will likely become more and more difficult over time. Commercial buildings covered under Seattle’s new law must reach net-zero emissions by 2045, and multi-family buildings by 2050 — a requirement that would effectively require swapping out fossil fuel appliances with heat pumps and other electric options. (Carbon offsets purchased by utilities would be allowed to count toward buildings’ net-zero calculations.) A handful of other cities have also passed building performance standards to cut emissions, including Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Updating building energy codes is another viable way for cities to pursue electrification without running afoul of the 9th Circuit ruling, Hasselman said. Recent changes to Washington state’s building energy codes, which set minimum efficiency standards for buildings, will soon require new buildings to achieve the same energy performance as buildings that use electric heat pumps. Much like Seattle’s new building standards, the update does not explicitly require builders to install heat pumps, although “it also actively makes gas pretty impractical,” said Hasselman. The legal somersault was intentional: Washington state policymakers delayed and revised the new codes in response to the 9th Circuit’s ruling, since a previous draft would have mandated heat pump installation.

Solaris Energy employees install a heat pump at a home in Folkestone, U.K., on September 20, 2021. Andrew Aitchison / In pictures via Getty Images

Creating stricter indoor air quality standards is another option to phase out fossil fuel appliances without explicitly banning them, Hasselman said. Ashland, Oregon, is currently considering setting maximum thresholds for indoor air pollutants like carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and methane emissions that would effectively eliminate the burning of fossil fuels in buildings. In March, California’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which regulates air pollution in nine counties in the San Francisco metropolitan area, adopted rules to phase out sales of gas furnaces and water heaters that produce nitrogen oxide emissions, citing health impacts including coughing, wheezing, and a higher risk of asthma attacks.

Meanwhile, opposition from the gas industry continues to loom over the movement to “electrify everything.” In the past few years, at least 24 states have passed laws to prevent local governments from banning gas in buildings, galvanized by support from trade groups like the American Gas Association and gas utilities like Dominion Energy. In Eugene, Oregon, the gas utility NW Natural funded a highly coordinated campaign to oppose the city’s natural gas ban. But even with ongoing legal challenges and industry pushback, Hasselman said that Seattle’s new law “reflects how unstoppable the shift is towards electrification.”

“Momentum was slowed for a bit, but it’s picking back up as cities and local governments lead into the future, away from burning gas in homes,” he said. “And that is the future. It’s just a matter of how fast it’s going to happen.”

Source: Grist.org

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Many Global South states were already struggling to deal with COVID-connected debt problems prior to the West’s anti-Russian sanctions worsening their food insecurity, so an energy price crisis on top of that could have pushed them over the edge into an uncontrollable polycrisis that would have also destabilized the West.

A representative of India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry told a department-related parliamentary standing committee that their country’s Russian oil imports helped stabilize the global energy market and prevent havoc from breaking out according to a recent report from the The Indian Express. What follows are the excerpts that they cited from that event, which will then be analyzed so that the reader can fully appreciate India’s latest contribution to the world:

“If they (Indian refiners) had not imported Russian oil into India, which may be a big number of 1.95 million barrels per day, that deficiency would have created a havoc in the crude oil market and the prices would have shot up by about $30-40.

The crude oil market is such that in the market of 100 million barrels per day, if the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) says that they are going to reduce it by one or two million barrels per day, prices increase by 10 to 20 per cent and reach up to $125-130.

If India does not absorb–I would call it absorption–1.95 million barrels per day, these prices would have reached $120-130. It would have created a havoc. Diplomatically, we are a sovereign country and could say that we have been doing what is good for the country as well as the world.”

This insight aligns with what was earlier shared in these five analyses from June 2022-March 2023:

* 14 June 2022: “Russian-Indian Energy Diplomacy Helps Delhi Balance Washington”

* 30 November 2022: “Russia’s Energy Geopolitics With China & India”

* 16 January 2023: “The US Discredited Its Own Sanctions By Buying Refined Russian Oil Products Via India”

* 8 February 2023: “The West’s Anti-Russian Sanctions Made India Indispensable To The Global Energy Market”

* 1 March 2023: “Russia Will Keep Up The Pace Of Oil Exports To India Despite Increased Chinese Demand”

If India hadn’t resisted Western pressure, then the whole international community would have suffered.

To explain, many Global South states were already struggling to deal with COVID-connected debt problems prior to the West’s anti-Russian sanctions worsening their food insecurity, so an energy price crisis on top of that could have pushed them over the edge into an uncontrollable polycrisis. Not only could this have led to spiraling unrest that could have spread throughout this swath of the world, but the security and humanitarian consequences would have also destabilized the West as well.

Those countries among that New Cold War bloc that are dependent on resources and markets there might have felt compelled to launch unilateral military interventions, while large-scale refugee flows could have crashed into their societies with all that entails for exacerbating preexisting tensions. This worst-case scenario was averted through India’s principled neutrality towards the Ukrainian Conflict, which saw this globally significant Great Power resist Western pressure to boycott Russian energy.

If Delhi had capitulated to their demands, then the abrupt removal of so much energy from the market would have plunged it into chaos. The remaining producers couldn’t have replaced Russia’s lost share, thus leading to a competition among the wealthiest countries (namely China and the EU) to purchase their remaining resources. All the while, the debt-beleaguered and newly food-insecure Global South would have been unable to maintain its minimum energy needs, thus setting the polycrisis into motion.

As the unnamed Indian official told parliament, “we have been doing what is good for the country as well as the world”, which highlighted the growing convergence between India’s national interests and those of the international community. This South Asian Great Power practices what can be described as a hyper-realist grand strategy wherein India not only prioritizes its national interests as policymakers conceive them to be, but candidly acknowledges this approach and also details those same interests.

By doing so, India removes all ambiguity about its interests, which therefore makes it the most predictable partner that anyone can have. This policy is premised on the trust that India has cultivated with everyone since they don’t have any reason to question its representatives’ sincerity whenever they speak about their national interests. Some might have different views and even dislike India’s policies, but nobody can credibly claim that those representatives are lying about what that they want and why.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov praised this approach and the multi-alignment that it naturally led to during a press conference with his Indian counterpart on Wednesday when saying that “I believe this policy is not just important for Russia and all other countries around the world, but it is the only policy worth conducting that will ensure respect and reputation and be beneficial in India’s cooperation with other countries that show similar respect to all members of the international community.”

The West will never appreciate what India did for the world, but the Global South is beginning to realize that the polycrisis that many of their officials feared would unfold shortly after the anti-Russian sanctions were promulgated was largely averted through India’s drastically scaled imports of that country’s oil. This stabilized the market, which made it easier for them to manage their debt and food security problems, thus preventing this swath of the world from slipping into full-scale instability to everyone’s detriment.

Source: Korybko.substack.com

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What’s Inside a Lithium-Ion Battery?

Winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2019, the lithium-ion battery has become ubiquitous and today powers nearly everything, from smartphones to electric vehicles.

In this graphic, we partnered with EnergyX to find out how these important pieces of technology work.

Looking Inside

Lithium-ion batteries have different standards in various regions, namely NMC/NMCA in Europe and North America and LFP in China. The former has a higher energy density, while the latter has a lower cost.

Here is the average mineral composition of a lithium-ion battery, after taking account those two main cathode types:

Material% of Construction

Nickel (Ni)4%

Manganese (Mn)5%

Lithium (Li)7%

Cobalt (Co)7%

Copper (Cu)10%

Aluminum (Al)15%

Graphite (C)16%

Other Materials36%

The percentage of lithium found in a battery is expressed as the percentage of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) the battery contains. On average, that is equal to 1g of lithium metal for every 5.17g of LCE.

How Do They Work?

Lithium-ion batteries work by collecting current and feeding it into the battery during charging. Normally, a graphite anode attracts lithium ions and holds them as a charge. But interestingly, recent research shows that battery energy density can nearly double when replacing graphite with a thin layer of pure lithium.

When discharging, the cathode attracts the stored lithium ions and funnels them to another current collector. The circuit can react as both the anode and cathode are prevented from touching and are suspended in a medium that allows the ions to flow easily.

Powering Tomorrow

Despite making up only 7% of a battery’s weight on average, lithium is so critical for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries that the U.S. Geological Survey has classified it as one of 35 minerals vital to the U.S. economy.

This means refining lithium more effectively is critical to meeting the demand for next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

EnergyX is powering the clean energy transition with the next generation of lithium metal batteries with longer cycle life, greater energy density, and faster charging times.

The post Visualized: Inside a Lithium-Ion Battery appeared first on Elements by Visual Capitalist.

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US LNG exporting giant Cheniere now plans to build two instead of three liquefaction trains as part of the Sabine Pass expansion project in Louisiana. Cheniere said the company is not reducing its growth ambition at Sabine Pass, and with this move it would achieve similar production with an optimized unit/cost footprint.

Sabine Pass currently has a capacity of about 30 mtpa following the launch of the sixth train in February last year, while Cheniere’s three-train Corpus Christi plant in Texas can produce about 15 mtpa of LNG and is undergoing expansion.

Earlier this year, Cheniere initiated the pre-filing review process with the US FERC for the Sabine Pass Stage 5 expansion project.

The original plans included the construction of three large-scale liquefaction trains, each with a production capacity of about 6.5 mtpa of LNG, a boil-off-gas (BOG) reliquefaction unit with a production capacity of 0.75 mtpa of LNG, and also two 220,000-cbm LNG storage tanks.

However, Cheniere now aims to construct two LNG trains with a nameplate capacity of about 7 mtpa each using ConocoPhillips liquefaction technology, according to a draft resource report filed with the FERC in November.

The Houston-based firm did not say in the report why it decided to build two trains as part of the project.

LNG Prime invited Cheniere to comment on the matter.

“The short answer is that we are best-sizing the trains and configuration of our proposed SPL expansion project to, together with estimated debottlenecking and growth opportunities, achieve similar production with an optimized unit/cost footprint,” a Cheniere spokesman said later on Wednesday.

“We are focused on long-term and durable value creation. As such, we are continuously optimizing the configuration of this brownfield expansion to maximize its economics, scale, and speed to market,” he said.

“In short, we are not reducing our overall growth ambition at Sabine Pass. We continue to progress the commercialization of the expansion – an up to approximately 20 mtpa increase in capacity at our Sabine Pass facility, inclusive of estimated debottlenecking opportunities – and we look forward to advancing on our financial, regulatory and construction milestones to have it producing LNG by the end of this decade,” the spokesman said.

The proposed Sabine Pass expansion facilities will be interconnected and operated with the existing terminal, while Cheniere is also proposing an increase in the authorized maximum loading rate of LNG carriers and simultaneous loading capabilities for the three existing jetties.

Sabine Pass is proposing to increase loading to about 14,000 cbm per hour of LNG from the two new storage tanks to the existing marine berths.

To deliver about 2.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas to the expansion project, Cheniere’s unit Sabine Crossing proposes to build a new, 48-inch diameter natural gas pipeline of about 5.3 miles in length extending from Jefferson County, Texas, and into the LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.

The Sabine Pass LNG terminal currently has approval to produce and export 1661.94 Bcf/y of LNG (33.01 mtpa).

Cheniere said in the report the expansion project would produce an additional 843.15 Bcf/y of LNG, equivalent to about of 16.83 mtpa of LNG for export or 2,050 MMscfd.

Also, the marine berths would be able to accommodate the total project exports of 49.84 mtpa, it said.

Cheniere said that engineering for the expansion project has progressed from preliminary design and is currently in the front-end engineering and design stage.

Cheniere engaged Bechtel to complete FEED.

The firm expects detailed engineering to start in the third quarter of 2025.

According to Cheniere, the LNG exporter aims to start construction in February 2026 and to complete it in October 2030.

Cheniere plans to complete the commissioning and launch the new project in June 2031.

(Article updated to include comments by a Cheniere spokesman.)

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Russian LNG exporter Novatek was granted Russian patents for a large-scale ammonia process and a large-scale pure hydrogen process based on ammonia cracking.

The low-carbon ammonia process, which Novatek developed in cooperation with Russian design institutes, is based on steam reforming of natural gas, according to a statement by Novatek.

Novatek said the now-patented process design “enables ammonia production capacities of over 1 mmtpa per process train, as well as a smaller carbon footprint, which is achieved through energy-efficient solutions and 90 percent plus carbon capture and geological storage.”

“The large-scale ammonia cracking process is a major step towards a value chain that would allow bringing pure hydrogen to end consumers at a competitive and affordable price,” the firm said.

In June, Novatek also obtained a Russian patent for its proprietary technology called “Arctic Mix” for large-scale natural gas liquefaction using mixed refrigerants.

According to Novatek, the firm developed this LNG process technology to implement the company’s large-scale projects on gravity-based structures with a production capacity of 6+ mtpa per LNG train.

Novatek currently exports LNG via its 17.4 mtpa Yamal LNG plant and the mid-scale facility with a capacity of 660,000 tons in Vysotsk.

The firm is also building the 19.8 mtpa Arctic LNG 2 plant and in August completed the installation of the first of three trains which will serve the project.

According to reports in Russia, Novatek started production of LNG from this unit last week and expects to complete commissioning early next year.

However, the firm also issued force majeure on Arctic 2 LNG supplies to its customers due to US sanctions imposed on the project in November this year, the reports said.

Novatek is the LNG project’s operator with a 60 percent stake, France’s TotalEnergies owns 10 percent, while CNPC and CNOOC of China have 10 percent, each.

Japan Arctic LNG, a consortium of Mitsui & Co and Jogmec, owns a 10 percent stake in the project as well.

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Italy’s Eni has introduced the first gas into its Tango floating LNG (FLNG) facility moored in Congolese waters.

Eni said in a statement on Thursday that gas introduction had been achieved in record time– only twelve months after the final investment decision.

Following completion of the commissioning phase, Tango FLNG would produce its first LNG cargo by the first quarter of 2024, placing the Republic of Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, on the list of LNG-producing countries, it said.

In August last year, Eni signed a deal to buy the 144 meters long Tango FLNG from Belgium’s Exmar.

The floating LNG producer, delivered in 2017 by China’s Wison, has a liquefaction capacity of about 1 billion cubic meters per year of gas, or 0.6 mtpa, and a storage capacity of 16,100 cbm.

In October, officials from Eni, Exmar, Congo’s SNPC, and Drydocks World gathered to celebrate the sail away of the FLNG and also the Excalibur FSU from Dubai to Congo.

The unit arrived in Angola in November onboard Seaway 7’s heavy-lift vessel, Seaway Swan, and was subsequently towed to its location offshore Pointe Noire, Congo.

Exmar serves as the engineering, procurement and conversion (EPC) contractor for this project, and has designed the mooring system and performed the refurbishments on both vessels at the Drydocks World yard.

Also, Exmar provides the FSU on a long-term charter and will be responsible for all terminal operations on the Congo LNG project.

ENI said that the FLNG is moored alongside the Excalibur FSU using an innovative configuration called “split mooring,” implemented here for the first time in a floating LNG terminal.

The Congo LNG project leverages Marine XII gas resources and existing production facilities in a new, phased approach that will allow to reach about 4.5 bcm per year of gas liquefaction capacity at plateau, as well as zero routine gas flaring, Eni said.

A second FLNG vessel with a capacity of about 3.5 bcm per year of gas, or 2.4 mtpa, is under construction in China and is expected to begin production in 2025.

Wison Offshore & Marine won a contract from Eni in December last year to build the 380 meters long FLNG and officially started work on the project on January 17, 2023.

The unit will be able to store over 180,000 cubic meters of LNG.

Eni said the Congo LNG project will help Congo meet its energy needs while seizing the opportunity to exploit surplus gas through LNG production.

The entire volume of LNG produced will be marketed by Eni.

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