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“Irreparable injury:” Courts order dismantling of wind farms in US, France

FRANCE DROPS RENEWABLES TARGETS IN NEW ENERGY BILL

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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Stuart Turley: [00:00:15] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News Beat podcast. My name’s Stu Turley president CEO of the sandstone Group. Today is January 10th, 2024. It’s kind of amazing. Hey, I got an action packed show today. But I’ll tell you what. There’s a couple things in this thread. We’ve got legal, we’ve got a regulatory legislation through regulatory actions and we’ve got international funny kind of stuff. So hang on, buckle up. Get your flight suit. We are going over, uh, across the pond, and this one’s pretty funny. Uh, Nicola Sturgeon’s flagship hybrid ferry now runs only on diesel battery is too expensive to fix. You gotta love that one. Yesterday, Michael and I talked about France and bringing in, uh, the new renewable targets. And this coincides with their nuclear, um, fleet that they’re expanding out. Pretty cool news there. I’ll tell you what. This next story is pretty amazing. It’s about the government’s hydrogen policy is a crime against thermodynamics. We’ll cover this here in a second. Always gotta love me a good crime. So now let’s also take a look at German farmers. Begin an eight day massive protest against increased government taxation and alarmist climate agenda. This is a critical story that the mainstream media is not covering. This is important, and especially for our great, uh, farmers because they’re under attack. And, uh, it’s just sad. We have to stand with our great farmers and farmers around the world. You don’t have any farmers. You don’t eat. There’s a little bit of a conspiracy there for you for that one. [00:02:05][110.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:06] Let’s go to, uh, irreparable, uh, injury courts rule dismantling of wind farms in US and France. This is pretty cool. We’re going to take a look at some of the, uh, legislation through regulatory actions and some of those impacts. So let’s get started with the, uh, flagship hybrid ferry now only runs on diesel. This is an amazing story. This is a ferry in, uh, in Scotland. Now, uh, one of the funny things about Scotland is, uh, they have cut down millions of trees in order to put in wind farms now. And this is called the MV hollow. It was the first in the world to use a system without carbon emissions by 20% when it was launched in 2012. It is an a battery machine, uh, battery ferry that also had dual fuel, which is a, uh, diesel powered engine. But you can hear right there that it was only 20%, so the batteries didn’t last that long. The batteries broke on the the $10 million vessel and it would cost, um, six years. Now the problem in the ferry is the MV Glen Rossa, which are six years overdue in 260 million overbudget, which is additional ferries that they’re buying in this configuration. He said the strategy was flawed and it makes a lot of sense having a dual fuel that you want to film, uh, you want to run on batteries and then use the diesel doesn’t really get you that much because the batteries weigh so much. And then they broke down and now they are more expensive. And so they’re just running on diesel, dragging around all this weight. The report claims that the total running cost of the hybrid ferries is 259% more than a diesel only equivalent. Uh, the Sturgeon was designed as a ship’s godmother and said the time it symbolized everything Scottish Government is striving to achieve. Well, kind of like the U.S. government if you’re trying to achieve going broke. Looks like we’re, uh, rolling right along on that. So I’m all in on hybrids, and, uh, I think hybrids are the way to go, but you can’t run them this way. Possibly there was a better design. And now that they’re better designs out there, I think I would stop production on those other ferries. [00:04:47][161.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:48] So, hey, let’s roll over here to France. France drops renewable targets in the new energy bill. Uh, you gotta hand it to France. Uh, they were the poster child for nuclear. They’ve been selling a lot of their electricity to their neighbors, uh, especially in Germany. Over time, they were also. They’ve reduced their 50 some odd nuclear reactors. They’re only running at 25% capacity of their nuclear fleet because they have absolutely decimated their maintenance. So, uh, when you take a look at maintenance on it. So they are now proposed. Yesterday we ran a story saying that they’re looking at an additional 14 nuclear reactors. This is pretty excited. In 1973, after the oil crisis. They put in 50, uh, at that time. Uh, so now that they understand they can sell the electricity, they’re one of the cleanest energy providers in the world. So this is pretty exciting news that this was a day after the other story. They’re reducing their, uh, ability to do the energy transition to reach its stated ambition of carbon neutrality. By 2050, France will have to massively ramp up the production and share of renewables. The studies have constantly shown you can’t do that efficiently, and wind and solar are not sustainable without printing money. Nuclear is capable of being sustainable, low carbon and low emissions because they can handle it through the market in low cost kilowatt per hour. Applaud the French. Pretty darn cool. [00:06:38][110.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:39] This next article is pretty amazing. The government’s hydrogen policy is a crime against thermodynamics. Michael laughs at me because at one time I really had a lot of fun. I thought, uh, hydrogen was the way to go. I thought it was great. You could put hydrogen in the, uh, natural gas pipelines, change out the turbines, and you would be able to rock and roll. Uh, little thing called physics and, uh, things that happened on econ economics of scale. Got to give a shout out to Irina Slav. She has brought up a lot of the hydrogen problems. Takes a lot of energy in order to create hydrogen. Unless you’re using nuclear. Hydrogen’s not very affordable in. The molecules are so small for energy that they escape out of the natural gas pipelines, causing danger. So on the December 14th, the government used the distraction of Cop 28 meeting to announce updates in its hydrogen policy, hydrogen product, uh, production delivery roadmap, announcement of the results and construction of blending hydrogen into the gas distribution network and a strategic policy of the same topic. This is really, uh, going to be expensive ten gigawatts of hydrogen production capacity to be delivered by 2030. Wind in offshore wind is now suffering from investments. Companies and countries have long lost billions of dollars from the unsustainability of wind. And so I’m seeing that this is now a move to try to go into hydrogen in a huge way so that you can again fund these projects and have a wealth redistribution. If you’re a hydrogen expert, I openly invite you to come on the podcast. I want to visit with you about the advantages of hydrogen. And if it is truly sustainable, why do we need to use so much energy to get so little out of it? I want to understand these things right now. There is a world crisis that several of the, uh, NGOs have claimed that they’re going to initiate. And if you sit back and say the, uh, there’s a water shortage, we have to be careful on where you can use hydrogen, how you transport it in through the legislation, through regulatory actions in the US. How can we use the pipelines with new hydrogen in updating those pipelines when we can’t even get all of the projects? We have 24,000 projects that are waiting to be attached to the grid. If we we got some regulation issues to take care of. Here’s another part of this whole thing. [00:09:43][183.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:43] Today, German farmers begin eight day massive protest against increased government taxation in alarmist climate agenda. This is a critical topic because the weaponization of taxes and cart and climate, uh, activism against our great U.S farmers is in play. Why is it that Bill gates owned so much of our farmland, and they’re trying to eliminate the family farm? Arms. This is coming in to the same thing in my hand is off to, uh, the Berlin farmers and, uh, if, uh, miss production, uh, manager, if you could bring this in, uh, there is a nice picture there of the farmers lined up, uh, with all of their tractors causing congestion, like you wouldn’t believe. Uh, farm subsidies, uh, are a tough topic. I understand, uh, subsidies on the farm. I understand, but how about some tax incentives? And as I’m working with a few folks right now, uh, Mark and a few other folks that we sit back and we try to say, how can the energy sector help the agriculture sector and really try to help each other out? Agriculture in the U.S. is one of the biggest uses of energy. And I’m going to have a call out to, uh, oil and gas executives to try to help our farmers help humanity and try to really step up our game and help lower food costs and energy costs. The only way that we can get inflation under control is through proper and good and low cost energy. I’m welcoming any economist on this podcast to talk about that. The fed has totally lost their ability to go ahead and try to fix inflation. My opinion the only way to fix inflation is quit printing money and get your energy prices under control. So let’s go to my last story here. When you have wind in the climate, activists trying to put out as much as they possibly can into, uh, energy, this is two very important pledges, uh, actually, uh, judging and rulings that they have to dismantle these wind farms. Wind farms are not cheap. They are not sustainable from day one without the subsidies. Now, remember we talked about this on Monday on the Energy Realities, uh, podcast with our mind. And the rest of the team is that subsidies go directly either to the consumers to pay for the high expenses, uh, of the energy, or you use, uh, tax incentives, which gives people investment into that energy, giving lower cost energy. There’s a difference between tax incentives and subsidies. But everybody has changed the narrative from the act and this side saying tax incentives, which comes from profits and not coming from, uh, taxpayers. So when you take a look, one of them was in Oklahoma on the Osage Minerals Council on Osage land. They were fighting for their, uh, estates. And so we’re open for business, and we look forward to anyone who negotiated it with us in good faith. In this case, the wind farm had been built without proper approvals on the royalties. So the, uh, state of Oklahoma, the judge in the Tulsa federal court, uh, ruled in mid uh, the initial North American, a subsidiary of Italian Energy, now must now dismantle the 150 megawatt Osage Wind farm. Holy smokes, that is expensive. And when you take a look at, uh, the 150 megawatt available, that’s the nameplate, uh, that, uh, farm of those turbines, we all know that only 20 to 30% of that megawatt is available to go to the grid. So let’s go to the other one that was in here, and that was the Grenache, uh, wind farm. Uh, and it was, um, after numerous environment complaints focusing on the turbines negative impact on bird life, specifically, the golden Eagle. Was one death already recorded on the the rare bird. We’ve been losing thousands upon thousands and millions of bats and birds because as they fly through, I thought that it would be just the wind blades hitting it in. The bird should be able to avoid it in the bench, but Tammy Nemeth was able to articulate that is, when you fly through the blades, they come through on the other side, and it’s the pressure of the air pressure that has changed that. That is about the most amazing thing that I had ever seen. And then David Blackmon and, uh, Megan Lampe have been talking a lot about the death of the way. Um, and the right whales and all of the other whales on the East coast of the United States because of all of the offshore wind farms, where are the activist, the ESG activists, when whales are involved, when birds, there’s now mosquito breakout where the bats are dying off. The second order of magnitude is in effect. I’d like to give a shout out to all of our great podcast listeners. All the feedback. I’ve got a new series that’s starting out with George McMillan, and we are covering, uh, geo blocking, uh, political activity, uh, energy and, uh, how this is going to shake out. I’ve got another podcast coming around and it’s going to be covering the Chinese weather balloon. It’s going to be covering the how. They have now got pieces into the grid, and they may be able to take the grid down. I’ll talk about how that happens and the connection between that. I’ve got Michael Yang coming up. He is a war correspondent and he was boots on the ground in, uh, Panama. I’m going to tease this, uh, a Biden administration key. Uh, Secretary was boots on the ground at a Chinese military base down there. What were they doing? We got film. So hang on, buckle up. And there’s a lot of crazy stuff about to happen. Thank you so much. And, uh, reach out to me at any time. Michael will be back tomorrow. I appreciate everybody’s time. [00:09:43][0.0][566.0]

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The post Daily Energy Standup Episode #283 – Hybrid Ferry Woes, France’s Nuclear Shift, and Hydrogen Policy Critique appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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The weaponization of the US Dollar and sanctions directly impact energy prices and are a major contribution to the potential pending wars. 

George McMillan, Founder and CEO of G3Strat Group, a geopolitical historian and current energy expert, stops by the podcast. This is the second of our podcast series, which talks about the academic scholars and grand strategies taught at the military academies and how the current administration uses these strategies.

Our first podcast was a two-hour interview that felt like 5 minutes. The feedback from around the world has been phenomenal, and we started the series to help avoid potential wars.

He points out the key steps this current administration is making and ties the published works of experts on YouTube and other public sources. Just as Michael and I have the “Energy Threads” between our stories every day, George can match stories, books, and theories into an excellent analysis of why the current administration has weaponized the US dollar and imposed sanctions around the world.

George was also on the ground with Michael Yon, an international war correspondent, researching several stories. In my interview with Michael, they looked at the Chinese military base in Panama that is moving military-aged men from around the world to the open US border. This is all tied to energy, as we are also working on the Chinese connection to our grid and their ability to take it down in the case of a military conflict.

Is it incompetence, or is it by design that the world is heading into a potential multi-front war that the US can not win?

Thank you, George, for your service to our country and geopolitical and energy leadership.

Georges’s landing page on the Energy News Beat site is HERE: https://energynewsbeat.co/george-mcmillian/

Follow George on his LinkedIn HERE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-mcmillan-5665b015/

Run of Show

00:00 – Intro

01:54 – U.S. Historical Strategy: Overview of the U.S. strategy of containing Russia and China, rebuilding Western Europe and Japan, and countering communism.

06:30 – Energy in Geopolitics: Emphasis on understanding energy in geopolitical realignment, discussing grand strategies, and the role of trade in national power.

11:40 – U.S. German Russo-Japanese Connection: Exploring the geopolitical implications of historical connections, highlighting ongoing conflicts and alliances.

17:54 – Central Asia Geopolitics: Discussion on the ongoing geopolitical struggle in Central Asia, focusing on natural gas integration and proposing a nine-power center doctrine.

21:53 – Silk Road and Belt and Road Initiative: Explaining the original Silk Road’s purpose and Belt and Road Initiative’s maritime strategy, providing insights into China’s energy and geopolitical goals.

27:36 – China-India Rivalry: Highlighting historical rivalry, connecting it to the Belt and Road Initiative, and emphasizing the complexity of geopolitical conflicts in neutral zones.

31:29 – Understanding Human Behavior: Emphasizing the continuum of human behavior and its impact on political-economic development and geostrategic mercantilist theory.

36:04 – Jeffrey Sachs’ Peace Plan: Discussing a peace plan based on mutual trade dependency, addressing negative sum sabotage, and highlighting the continuity of conflicts.

39:45 – Energy Sources and Geopolitics: Exploring the cost dynamics of energy sources, with a focus on Gazprom’s low cost, and underscoring the multifaceted nature of geopolitical and economic discussions.

44:37 – Global Currencies and Challenges: Discussing historical shifts in global currencies and potential challenges arising from growing national debt and interest payments.

50:18 – Sunni-Shia Geopolitical Dynamics: Delving into Sunni-Shia dynamics, pipeline routes, and connecting it to Wesley Clark’s mentioned targets for invasion.

54:30 – Pipeline Routes and Middle East: Exploring geopolitical dynamics around pipeline routes, U.S. and U.K. strategies, and recent events in the Middle East.

58:39 – Russia’s Export-Led Growth: Discussing Russia’s export-led growth model, challenges with oligarchs, and connecting factors to geopolitical strategies and conflicts in Eurasia.

01:04:35 – Changing Geopolitical Landscape: Examining the changing geopolitical landscape, Russia’s integration with China, and rational actor models in global competition.

01:09:06 – Geopolitical Importance of Energy Routes: Underscoring the importance of controlling energy routes, especially in the context of Russia’s integration with China.

01:13:15 – Counter-Strategies and Geopolitical Moves: Emphasizing the need to understand counter-strategies and geopolitical moves in response to U.S. and U.K. strategies.

01:17:39 – Outro

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Transcription is being added.

The post ENB #171 George McMillan – Geopolitics are changing at a critical pace, and we can learn from the past to avoid wars today. appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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PARIS – Critics are deriding as a step backward a new French energy bill that favours the further development of nuclear power and avoids setting targets for solar and wind power and other renewables.

France, like other EU countries, aims to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050.

The proposed text, which is slated to go before the cabinet early next month and then be submitted to lawmakers, reaffirms France’s commitment to nuclear power to ensure “energy sovereignty”.

The country became a leader in nuclear power generation after the 1973 oil crisis, building over 50 such power plants that produced around two-thirds of the country’s electricity.

But those reactors are ageing and France has yet to bring the first of a new generation of nuclear power plants online.

The proposed text affirms “the sustainable choice of using nuclear energy as a competitive and carbon-free” source of electricity, and targets the construction of at least six but as many as 14 new reactors to pull off the transition to clean energy and meet climate change goals.

But the proposed text sets no such targets for building renewable capacity, in particular wind and solar, whereas previous energy laws did.

The Ministry of Energy Transition said “it is false to say that there is no renewables objective” as the government will set the targets itself later.

But that pledge does not satisfy activists and experts.

“It’s a terrible step back,” said Arnaud Gosse, a lawyer specialising in environmental law.

He recalled that in a 2019 law, parliament stated the desire to debate the share of different energy sources in overall production.

“If you only quantify nuclear power, you do not know the share of non-renewable energies. As a result, nuclear gets prioritised and, depending on remaining coverage needs, non-renewables will be the subject of floating (future) decrees. It’s no longer a mix,” Gosse said.

To reach its stated ambition of carbon neutrality by 2050 France will have to massively ramp up the production and share of renewables, studies have repeatedly shown.

After years of prevarication, France last year voted through two bills designed to speed up progress on nuclear as well as renewables.

In November, the government put forward initial figures proposing a doubling to 18 GW of offshore wind power in 2035 as well as setting out the annual rate of deployment of solar panels needed to hit 75 GW in 2035, while also aiming for a doubling of onshore wind power capacity to 40 GW in 2035.

Jules Nyssen, president of France’s Renewable Energies Union, declared himself “stunned” after discovering that renewables targets did not appear in the draft.

The text promises to make efforts rather than set objectives and uses formulations such as “tending towards a reduction”.

For Anne Bringault, energy transition manager of the Climate Action Network, “this is an extremely significant step backwards, and totally inconsistent with European objectives.

“Even if the objectives are raised, we no longer have such a strong commitment to them,” she said.

The draft law also drops targets for reducing energy consumption via renovation of buildings.

Source: Enca.com

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The post FRANCE DROPS RENEWABLES TARGETS IN NEW ENERGY BILL appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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The post “Irreparable injury:” Courts order dismantling of wind farms in US, France appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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You will likely hear the term “farm subsidies” as Western media claim the German farmers are protesting the decisions by government. However, what they are protesting is not a hand-out of government funds, but rather the addition/increase of taxes for diesel fuel and farming equipment.

The planned eight-day countrywide protests by agricultural workers began today. The actions include motorway blockades and are described by the head of the farmers’ association as “the like of which the country has never experienced before.” The government is planning to increase taxes on Diesel fuel and farm equipment as part of the German “Build Back Better” climate agenda.

Additionally, you might remember the Canadian “trucker protests,” when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his left-wing government tried to deflect attention from the justified motive of the truckers by claiming they were Nazis and part of the right-wing extremist conspiracy to destroy government. Well, that same approach is taking place in Germany with government officials claiming the German farmers are backed by right-wing Nazis.

BERLIN, Jan 8 (Reuters) – German farmers kicked off a week of nationwide protests against subsidy cuts on Monday, blocking roads with tractors and piling misery on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition as it struggles to fix a budget mess and contain rising far-right forces.

Convoys of tractors and trucks gathered on roads in sub-zero temperatures in nearly all 16 federal states, while protesters clashed with police and leading politicians warned that the unrest could be co-opted by extremists.

The protests have forced Scholz’s unpopular government into a tricky balancing act, trying to keep a lid on the unrest while sticking to fiscal discipline after a constitutional court ruling in November threw its spending plans into disarray.

“No beer without farmers,” read one protest banner, while another tractor had a poster from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that read “Our farmers come first.”

Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, whose return from holiday last week was disrupted by furious farmers trying to storm the ferry he was on, warned in a video message on Monday that farmers’ right to protest could be exploited by fringe groups.

“Calls are circulating with coup fantasies, extremist groups are forming and ethnic-nationalist symbols are being openly displayed,” said Habeck. (read more)

According to the German government, the farmers are revolting…

Source: Theconservativetreehouse.com

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The post German Farmers Begin 8 Day Massive Protest Against Increased Government Taxation and Alarmist Climate Agenda appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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Back in the summer, there were signs that the consensus around Net Zero policy was starting to crack. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak then made his speech that watered down some Net Zero commitments and promised “a more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach that eases the burdens on families.” However, in the run-up to Christmas, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) made several worrying announcements about hydrogen policy.

Unfortunately, the announcements mark the end of the pragmatic approach to the Net Zero insanity and demonstrate that the Government has no idea about economics, thermodynamics or energy and has gone completely insane. Of course, consumers will pick up the tab.

On December 14th, the Government used the distraction of the COP28 meeting to announce updates to its hydrogen policy. There was a new hydrogen production delivery roadmap, an announcement of the results of a consultation on blending hydrogen into the gas distribution network and a strategic policy decision on the same topic.

The Government has a vision of up to 10 GW of hydrogen production capacity to be delivered by 2030, subject to “affordability and value for money”. This capacity would comprise 6 GW of ‘green hydrogen’ produced from electrolysis powered by renewables and 4 GW of ‘blue hydrogen’ produced from natural gas with the emissions captured (CCUS). The trouble is, its roadmap to 2030 only includes 4 GW of capacity and some of that does not deliver until 2031, so its own roadmap will not achieve its vision.

The Government expects its 10 GW vision to produce 60 TWh per year of hydrogen with 33 TWh of the total being blue hydrogen and the balance being green hydrogen. It is fortunate that its route map does not meet its vision because its estimate of hydrogen demand is only 18-40 TWh – well short of the supply of 60 TWh envisaged.

It recognises this mismatch between supply and demand and suggests that transport and storage infrastructure might be in place by then, so some of the excess could be stored. Although why would we want to store lots of hydrogen if supply is exceeding demand by such a vast amount? In case the storage capacity is insufficient, the Government sees “strategic and economic value in supporting blending” into the natural gas distribution network. It sees the gas network as the “offtaker of last resort”, although it has not yet formally taken the decision to blend hydrogen into our gas.

These announcements will have a significant impact on several areas including electricity demand, the size of our energy bills and the overall efficiency of the energy system.

Given the low efficiency of producing hydrogen using electrolysis, the 26 TWh of ‘green’ hydrogen (powered by renewables) would require about 49 TWh of electricity, which is more than the 45 TWh of electricity produced by the entire offshore wind. Even if it only achieves the 4 GW of total capacity outlined in its roadmap, then it would still need 20 TWh of renewable electricity to make the required amount of green hydrogen. It is clear to see that to make the amount of hydrogen in either the lower roadmap or the higher vision, then we would need more electrical generation capacity.

With renewable energy then being largely occupied with making hydrogen, this likely means we would have to burn more gas to keep the lights on, the heat pumps running and the EVs charged. This would be a bonanza for gas suppliers, but mostly those from overseas as the ban on domestic fracking continues. So much for energy security and the COP28 commitment to transition away from fossil fuels.

Even though the Government has committed to a value-for-money test, its hydrogen plans will increase our energy bills. The announced 11 green hydrogen projects were approved at a weighted average strike price of £241 per MWh (in today’s money). This is more than double the £112 per MWh (in 2020 money) that the Government estimated to produce hydrogen using dedicated offshore wind in its 2021 ‘Hydrogen Production Cost Report‘.

To put this in context, U.K. Natural Gas has recently been trading at the equivalent of around £33 per MWh, which is more than seven times less than the proposed cost of electrolytic hydrogen. Moreover, our gas is already about four times more expensive than U.S. gas. The consumer will lose out massively when this extremely expensive hydrogen is almost certainly blended into the gas network. Of course, the developers will be delighted to receive such high guaranteed prices.

These proposals will also reduce the overall efficiency of our energy system. If hydrogen is produced from natural gas with carbon capture (CCUS), around half of the energy in the gas will be lost in the process. In short, this is a crime against thermodynamics. It makes no sense at all to take methane, use it to produce hydrogen and then blend that hydrogen back into the gas network. It adds cost, reduces efficiency and will increase consumer bills. More natural gas will be used to deliver the same energy from the gas network with blended hydrogen, and of course higher demand for gas means higher prices.

The hydrogen roadmap will fail to achieve even half of the Government’s vision for 10 GW of hydrogen production capacity by 2050. Its vision entails producing 50% more hydrogen than even its most optimistic demand forecast, so it wants to fall back on injecting said hydrogen into the gas network. But this plan has not yet passed the required safety tests and will require legislative change to deliver.

The idea of producing more than half of the hydrogen using methane, losing half of the embedded energy in the process and then injecting much of it back into the gas grid is beyond insane. To avoid any doubt the Government’s insanity, it also proposes to produce the remaining hydrogen at a cost that is more than seven times the current cost of gas. Of course, this is all subject to the fig leaf of a value for money test. If value for money was even a secondary consideration this crackpot idea would have been abandoned long ago.

Taken together, these plans will increase the demand for gas and actually decrease the amount of useful energy we get from it. But because the Government has committed to “transition away” from fossil fuels, there are no plans to increase domestic supplies of gas from fracking. No, we will have to import it at great cost from the world’s despots.

Of course, these plans will be a gold mine for gas suppliers, for gas network operators, electrolyser makers and hydrogen producers. For the rest of us, it means much higher energy costs. It will be the end for heavy industry and a disaster for consumers. So much for a more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach that eases the burdens on families.

Source: Dailysceptic.org

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The post The Government’s Hydrogen Policy is a Crime Against Thermodynamics appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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The MV Hallaig, a hybrid electric ferry in Scotland, celebrated for reducing emissions, is now running on diesel due to a lengthy £1.5 million battery replacement. The Daily Record has the story.

The MV Hallaig was the first in the world to use a system which cut carbon emissions by 20% when it was launched in 2012.

But the battery broke on the £10 million vessel in September and bosses have admitted it could be April 2025 before it’s fixed because the replacement part is no longer available.

It’s now the third problem ferry in Scotland after the controversy over the MV Glen Sannox and MV Glen Rosa which are six years overdue and £260 million over budget.

Alfred Baird, formerly Professor of Maritime Business and Director of the Maritime Transport Research Group at Edinburgh Napier University, said he was consulted on the hybrid ferries but advised against them. He claims officials at the Scottish Government then complained to his bosses about his work and tried to stop his research being published.

He said: “The strategy was flawed in that it specified use of earlier battery designs that were much heavier than are now available, and operationally riskier – implying they should have continued with more efficient diesel designs until battery technology had improved sufficiently – as was the general industry practice within the ‘commercial’ ferry industry who were waiting on better technology coming along.

“The main weaknesses were therefore, one, inefficient and costly hull designs developed in-house and/or by insufficiently experienced naval architects. Two, the selection of inefficient/early battery technology which led to three higher costs of shoreside infrastructure.”

He added: “My research paper was submitted to Transport Scotland and ferry agencies at the time, also in my role as an independent Member of the Scottish Government’s Ferry Advisory Group, a Ministerial appointment. However, the officials not only ignored my advice, they complained to my university hierarchy about my research and sought to prevent publication.”

Baird’s report claimed the total running cost of the hybrid ferries would be 259% more than a diesel only equivalent. Sturgeon was described as the ship’s godmother and said at the time it “symbolised everything the Scottish Government is striving to achieve”.

It was built at the now nationalised Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow following more than £20 million of Scottish Government investment.

Source: Dailysceptic.org

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The post Nicola Sturgeon’s Flagship Hybrid Ferry Now Only Runs on Diesel As Battery Too Expensive to Fix appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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The U.S., Eurozone, and Chinese manufacturing indexes all showed contraction at year-end.
Weakness in manufacturing in China, the EU and the U.S. has been weighing on demand for distillates and will likely continue to weigh on global oil demand early in 2024.
For the time being, U.S. diesel and other distillate inventories are accumulating, although they are still below the five-year average.

Continued weakness in manufacturing activity in the United States, Europe, and China eased demand for diesel and other distillates in the fourth quarter, also easing the diesel markets that were very tight at the beginning of the third quarter.

The U.S., Eurozone, and Chinese manufacturing indexes all showed contraction at year-end as the sector entered 2024 with only slight optimism about regaining momentum this year.

The weak manufacturing activity, which has marked most of 2023 in the United States and Europe, and the uneven Chinese recovery have been weighing on demand for distillates and will likely continue to weigh on global oil demand early in 2024—the period in which oil consumption is typically at its weakest.

The weak manufacturing sector has contributed to the decline in oil prices in recent weeks, despite the OPEC+ cuts and the threat of attacks in the Red Sea, Reuters columnist John Kemp notes.

In the United States, economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted in December for the 14th consecutive month following a 28-month period of growth, supply executives said in the latest report by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). The U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose in December to 47.4%, up by 0.7 percentage point from the 46.7% recorded in November, but still below the 50-point mark separating contraction from growth.

The contraction has been persistent over the past year, but it has been shallow, so strength coming from possible interest rate cuts could result in pick-up in manufacturing activity, boosting demand for distillates later this year.

For the time being, U.S. diesel and other distillate inventories are accumulating, although they are still below the five-year average. In the week ending December 29, 2023, distillate inventories jumped by 10.1 million, which compared with a build of 800,000 barrels for the previous week, according to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Distillate fuel inventories are now about 6% below the five-year average for this time of year.

The surge in distillate, as well as gasoline, inventories in the last week of 2023 sent oil prices lower at the end of last week and at the start of this week, despite the continued threat of Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and a force majeure in Libya due to protests at its largest oilfield, the 300,000-barrels-per-day Sharara.

U.S. distillate stocks have increased by a little more than 20 million barrels since the middle of November, although stocks are still trending below the five-year average, ING strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said last week, commenting on the EIA inventory report.

“The large product builds were predominantly driven by weaker demand,” they noted, adding that “The large distillates build will do little to help end the broader weakness we have seen in middle distillate cracks in recent months.”

Refined product stocks also rose at the start of 2024 in Europe’s key hub

Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) and in Singapore.

Refining margins for diesel in Northwest Europe ended last year 40% below the levels from the end of 2022, despite the EU ban on seaborne imports of Russian petroleum products that came into effect in February 2023.

Europe has imported more diesel from the Middle East and Asia this year to offset the loss of Russian fuel supply. Import levels were high enough to ease fears of a supply shortage in the first winter without Russian fuels, while an industrial slowdown in Europe weakened demand.

In the Eurozone, manufacturing activity contracted for the 18th month in a row in December, the latest survey compiled by S&P Global showed. In China, the official PMI showed a third consecutive month of manufacturing sector contraction and one that was deeper than expected.

Globally, diesel and other distillate inventories are higher now than they were this time last year, suggesting that the global diesel market has started to ease, in part due to slowing construction and manufacturing activity in the United States and major European economies.

Source: Oilprice.com

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As tensions with Venezuela continue to simmer over President Nicolas Maduro’s attempt to annex oil-rich Essequibo from Guyana, the U.S. is sending a top defense official to Guyana to discuss the situation.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere Daniel P. Erikson is visiting Guyana on Monday and Tuesday in what the U.S. Embassy in Guyana referred to as a push for a “bilateral defense and security partnership in support of regional stability”. Erikson will be meeting with the Guyanese government and military leaders, as well as with the regional bloc, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In December, Guyana and Venezuela vowed to avoid the use of force in the dispute, which escalated earlier last month after Maduro held a referendum to annex Essequibo, then vowing to force the exit of foreign oil producers who refused to comply.

The Venezuelan parliament has yet to pass a law establishing Venezuela’s jurisdiction over the Essequibo region, which represents two-thirds of the territory of Guyana and is where its oil riches are concentrated.

Maduro is facing elections this year, and there has been significant speculation that the subject of the rightful ownership of Essequibo–a popular topic among Venezuelans–is being used to create a state-of-emergency situation that could justify the postponing of the elections.

In the meantime, an easing of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, which remains in place despite Maduro’s moves on Essequibo, where Exxon has made massive discoveries offshore, Venezuela’s oil exports rose 12% last year, reaching nearly 700,000 barrels per day.

However, this pace of increase of crude oil exports remains slower than last year, with gains limited in part by a lack of investment necessary to boost production, Reuters reports.

Source: Oilprice.com

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The post U.S. Defense Official Visits Guyana Over Threat To Oil-Rich Essequibo appeared first on Energy News Beat.

Energy News Beat
West Qurna 1, holding over 20 billion barrels of reserves, is a key asset in Iraq’s oil industry, with PetroChina now leading its development.
ExxonMobil’s withdrawal from the Common Seawater Supply Project and other Iraqi energy projects opened the door for Chinese and Russian firms to fill the gap.
The change in leadership at West Qurna 1 reflects a broader trend of increasing Chinese influence in Middle Eastern oil markets and the decline of Western hegemony

The official handover of the lead operator role on one of the world’s biggest oil fields – West Qurna 1 – from the U.S.’s ExxonMobil to China’s PetroChina was completed last week. However, unofficially China took control of the supergiant oil field from the moment at the end of June 2018 that ExxonMobil broke off talks with the Iraqi government about it being the lead partner in the country’s Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP) and began a strategic withdrawal from all Iraq energy projects, as did other Western energy firms. Chinese and Russian firms were happy to step into the project voids created. As a very high-ranking official from the Kremlin said recently at a meeting with senior government figures from Iran: “By keeping the West out of energy deals in Iraq […] the end of Western hegemony in the Middle East will become the decisive chapter in the West’s final demise,” a senior source who works closely with the European Union’s energy security apparatus exclusively told OilPrice.com.

West Qurna 1 is located around 65 kilometres from southern Iraq’s principal oil and export hub of Basra and holds a considerable portion of the estimated 43 billion barrels of recoverable reserves held in the entire supergiant West Qurna field. Originally, West Qurna 1 was thought to have around 9 billion barrels of these reserves, but early in 2021 Iraq’s Oil Ministry revised its recoverable reserves estimate for the field up to a total of over 20 billion barrels. Given this, the Ministry increased the target for the present phase of development from the previous 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 700,000 bpd, with the field currently producing around 550,000 bpd. The Ministry also said at that time that although the original production plateau target of 2.825 million bpd (by the early 2030s) had been negotiated down to 1.6 million bpd during contract discussions with participating oil companies at the time, the plateau target may well be raised again in the coming five years.

The main companies involved in those discussions were PetroChina – the listed arm of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) – which then completed the purchase of a 32.7 percent stake in West Qurna 1, and ExxonMobil, which also took a 32.7 percent stake. Almost immediately, PetroChina sought to establish itself as the dominant force on the site. As analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order, the strategy employed to effectively sideline ExxonMobil is one that China has repeatedly used in similar situations across the Middle East, with a key element being the often surreptitious and gradual acquisition of a range of huge ‘contract-only’ awards made to Chinese companies. The most notable of these early on was the November 2019 US$121 million engineering contract to upgrade the facilities that are used to extract gas during crude oil production to the China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corp. Similar ‘contract-only’ deals have been done by China across Iraq, including for its supergiant Majnoon oil field, to another hitherto unheard-of Chinese firm – the Hilong Oil Service & Engineering Company.

This incremental loss of influence across the West Qurna 1 project was one of ExxonMobil’s problems. Another potentially far greater one emerged as the U.S. supermajor discussed its other major targeted deal in Iraq – the US$53 billion CSSP. At that time, both projects were to form a new core presence for the U.S. in Iraq based around cooperation in the energy sector with the Iraq authorities, following years of rising military and sectarian tensions across the country. The CSSP is the key to Iraq’s being able to jump from its long-running oil production of around 4-4.5 million bpd to 7 million bpd, then 9 million bpd, and perhaps even 12 million bpd, as also analysed in depth in my new book on the new global oil market order. This would allow it to become the world’s second-biggest crude oil producer, after the U.S. and ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia. The CSSP involves taking and treating seawater from the Persian Gulf and then transporting it via pipelines to oil production facilities in order to maintain pressure in oil fields to optimise their output and longevity. The basic plan for the Project is that it will be used initially to supply around six million bpd of water to at least five southern Basra fields and one in Maysan Province, and then built out for use in further fields. However, both the longstanding stalwart fields of Kirkuk and Rumaila – the former beginning production in the 1920s and the latter in the 1950s, with both having produced around 80 percent of Iraq’s cumulative oil production – require major ongoing water injection. Although the water requirements for most of Iraq’s oilfields fall between these two cases, the needs for oilfield injection are highest in southern Iraq, in which water resources are also the least available.

ExxonMobil was brought into the CSSP initiative when it was first announced in 2010, to take the lead in co-ordinating initial studies for the plan at a time when Baghdad was looking to raise its oil production capacity to 12 million bpd by 2018, to overtake Saudi Arabia’s output. The U.S. firm was then removed in 2012 when negotiations fell through, and replaced by the state-run South Oil Company. By that time, it had become increasingly clear to the Americans that the Project was infused with massive risks to it that far outweighed the admittedly considerable rewards. Fully detailed in my new book, suffice it to say here that there were three key elements to the risk/reward matrix that formed the basis of those negotiations between ExxonMobil and the Oil Ministry. These were cohesion, security, and streamlining, a senior source who works closely with the Ministry exclusively told OilPrice.com at the time. “Cohesion related to ensuring the facilities that are connected to the CSSP are completed in order and in full, security related to the on-the-ground security of personnel and to the basic soundness of the business and legal practices involved in the agreement, and streamlining meant that any deal should continue as agreed, regardless of any change in government in Iraq,” he said. “The basic problem was that the [Oil] Ministry and other officials connected with the CSSP expected to receive commissions for anything they did, which might look a lot like bribery if they ever came to light, but if the payments weren’t made then the project simply would not have progressed,” he added. “The standard commission here is 15 percent, but it can rise to 30 percent or more, so with the development cost having risen to US$53 billion, Exxon[Mobil] was looking at under-the-counter payments of nearly US$8 billion, and that’s difficult to hide in any accounts, even if it wanted to do so,” he told OilPrice.com.

According to the source (and corroborated to OilPrice.com by two other senior sources connected to Iraq’s Oil Ministry at the time), ExxonMobil tried again in 2015 to reset negotiations with the Ministry back onto a normal business level by insisting that all the contracts relating to the CSSP were designed by independent Western risk experts and lawyers, and administered by independent Western accountants, but such demands came to nothing. “Ultimately, Exxon[Mobil] was not willing to take the risk to its reputation or to that of the U.S. government, and could not move forward with the CSSP, and it was from that point that it also started to look seriously at getting out of West Qurna 1 as well,” the source said.

CNPC then tried to take up the CSSP where ExxonMobil had left off – as part of a broad-based set of deals with Iraq that gave China huge discounts on oil and gas produced, as also analysed in depth in my new book – but made very little progress. Thereafter, no real progress was made until the Oil Ministry eventually agreed to allow France’s TotalEnergies to move ahead with it as part of a four-pronged US$27 billion deal. According to source close to the Ministry, the government again sought to inveigle the French supermajor into similar arrangements that it had tried on ExxonMobil, but TotalEnergies stood firm as well – which was why the deal was postponed repeatedly until it was recently ratified. How this will pan out for the French is uncertain, as the overall drift of Iraq into the China-Russia sphere of influence continues.

Source: Oilprice.com

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The post China Replaces Western Energy Firms in Iraq’s Supergiant Oil Field appeared first on Energy News Beat.