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Russia’s Shadow Fleet – 24 min Bloomberg Video – “Ships aquired by “We don’t know who; and insured by who knows?”

We no longer need the Cop circus – technology and markets are already solving the climate crisis

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

Michael Tanner: [00:00:14] What is going on? Everybody. Welcome into a special edition of the Daily Energy News Beat. Stand up here on this gorgeous Saturday, December 16th, 2023. As always, I’m your humble correspondent, Michael Tanner. How many from an undisclosed location here in Dallas, Texas, joined by executive producer of the show, the purveyor of the show and the director and publisher of the world’s greatest website, Energy News Beat.com Stuart Turley, my man. How we doing? [00:00:37][22.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:00:37] Today is a beautiful day in the neighborhood here in Dallas. I love it. [00:00:40][3.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:00:40] Absolutely Love to be close with you. I’m glad to have you in town all week. But we have our weekly recap coming up. Still, what we cover at the top segments from the week is an absolutely great week. We had two solo shows from you and myself, and then we spend a lot of time breaking down. What happened at COP 28? Some good opinion articles from some of the long time friends of the show. So absolutely Wild Week. I’m going to leave it up to the team to decide what the top segments for the week was, guys. But before they give you that, as always, the news and analysis you are about to hear is brought to you by the world’s greatest website www.energynewsbeat.com The best place for all of your energy news doing the team do an absolutely outstanding job keeping that website up to speed with everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy business. Follow us. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. Wherever you get your podcasts at Energy News, you can also check us out [email protected] You can hit us up [email protected] But I’m kind of a brought those do I’m going to kick it over to the weekly recap we’ll see you guys on Monday. [00:01:37][57.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:38] Russia’s shadow fleet. Michael and I have been talking about this for a very, very long time. The shadow fleet is old tankers that are being bought by Iran, Venezuela. There’s an estimated 500 to 600 tankers in the fleet. They take their transponders, they turn them off. They’ll meet with a legitimate tanker. Here’s the catch. These tankers are not insured through the normal insurance companies for oil. If something happens and these rust buckets have a problem. Let me bring up this one right here, this rust bucket. One of the best movie lines that’s out there says, I think I need a tetanus shot just from looking at it. That was from Up Periscope with Kelsey Grammer. This is an amazing movie. It’s a Bloomberg video that they have had a excellent aging discussion or of the aging fleet that’s out there. And they’re a direct response to the weaponization of the U.S. dollar that has gone on. This weaponization of the U.S. dollar is going to come back and bite the U.S. in the market. It is not going to be pretty. So in this article, it says this little piece of paper on a dark ship may say that it’s insured, but it’s not worth the paper it’s written on, said Simon Lockwood, a marine executive with the insurance broker. Two thirds are carrying Russian crude are now insured by unknown source. These tankers are registered to, I don’t know, and they are insured by unknown or who knows. So this is a Abbott and Costello scare waiting to happen. I was planning on that today. Michael is out on assignment. We’ll have to come up with that again some other time. So with that, how this plays in and this is an excellent video, it’s worth all of your time to watch it. The key thing is this plays into OPEC and Opec+ because they’re worried that all their OPEC members are producing more than their quotas, their quotas that are imposed on them that they’re allowing or they’re going to do. In fact, Brazil says, oh, we are now in the OPEC. And, oh, by the way, we’re going to go ahead and produce everything that we can anyway. The CEO of Petrobras just basically put that out last week. This is an interesting article saying that we cop no longer needs the cop circus. The U.N. has been putting this on for a very long time. I couldn’t agree more. But when we sit back and say that humanity and the markets, no, the best path has it’s kind of a misnomer from the standpoint that they are still printing a lot of money. The energy hypocrisy from Bill Gates and BlackRock is out there. BlackRock is saying that ESG funds have lost billions of dollars. They lost over $5 billion in their ESG funds. It’s now okay to invest in oil and gas. There’s a little bit of energy investing hypocrisy. Bill Gates came out and said, oh, by the way, climate change is not going to kill us. He’s now rescinding that I saw an interview with. I’m saying, Oh, no, it’s not bad. Somebody must have got to him. So I’m not totally sure that it is 100%. They are saying that we are seeing the oil and gas companies. Let’s take Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Saudi Arabia is using their oil profits in order to pay for green energy. Again, as I’ve always said, Saudi Arabia, I don’t agree with everything socially that they do, but I applaud the leadership for taking care of Saudi Arabia first, taking the oil and gas profits and then moving to renewables and funding both. That is actually an implantable thing to go forward with. And so the fact that there were so many oil companies there and so many of the green agenda folks that were not pleased by that, the best thing about was nuclear. The 22 countries that signed the nuclear deal is phenomenal. We need all forms of energy. You hear me say this all the time, but we need it nuclear. We need natural gas. We need oil. Because, as you know, you sit back and think, Ronald keeps telling me, you know, you can build an iPhone from a wind farm. You have to have oil. The just stop oil. Folks need to check their living standards. [00:06:34][296.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:35] Major Grid operator Warns Legal Agreement to Shutter Coal Plant Will Devastate Electric Liability. This is a really interesting, interesting article here. We have in a follow up letter obtained by Fox Business this week, PJM Interconnection, which oversees the electric supplies across the mid-Atlantic, repeatedly warned of a shutdown of the brand and shores coal plant is warned that the shutdown of this brand occurred in the Maryland area will result in 1 million customers having, quote, degraded grid reliability, which includes the entire city of Baltimore. The plant’s operator confirmed that they are deactivating that Brandon Shores coal plant in June 2025 as part of an agreement with, you guessed it, the Sierra Club. I mean, that’s the crazy part. We’ve we’re taking our grid reliability advice from the Sierra Club. This is an interesting quote from PJM president. I see you, Manitoba. As you are aware, Talon is currently prevented from continuing to run without a conversion beyond its stated actually date under a reliability. Must one framework do a private agreement it entered in with you either PJM, the federally designated regional grid operator in charge of maintaining grid Larry nor the state of Maryland is a party to this agreement. I mean, are you kidding me, folks? So the owners of this coal plant, were they again, Texas based talent, energy. They made a private agreement with the Sierra Club. Not government, not the EPA, not another actual government jurisdiction, the Sierra Club, again, the Sierra Club. He goes on to say this situation requires immediate attention, failure to come to a resolution. This could result in the degrade grid reliability of over 1 million Maryland customers during peak hours, including the entire city of Baltimore, four years and four years between the state, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Point of the matter is, guys, this is what happens when you let non I would say non-experts because anyone’s an expert now and experts are always wrong. We’ve seen that time and time again. But when you let people who are so far detached from the actual ground operations to make sure Clippers know what’s going on in Maryland or Baltimore, they could care less. You know, there’s they’re sitting somewhere probably in their really nice New York City penthouse conference suite that they’ve got, you know, pretending to be, you know, care about the environment. But really what they’re trying to do is you shut down and increase the grid in reliability. It’s absolutely unbelievable. We’ve got an issue now with so much solar that we can’t get and wind that we can’t get hooked up to the grid. But now we’re shutting off coal exactly when we need it and we can’t necessarily get the same grid reliably. It’s absolutely unbelievable. Again, I’m all for shutting down coal. It’s clear that there’s a huge amount of emissions that come from coal over to natural gas. Where is the solution on how to transition this source? They’re just going to shut it down? Well, Sierra Club is going to shut it down. Do you live in both? It’s clear they’re not they don’t live in Maryland. It’s clear the headquarters of the Sierra Club are not in Maryland. It’s absolutely unbelievable. The letter further goes on to say that both the Sierra Club and Talon Energy should amend the agreement to allow the coal to continue providing power for customers and the necessary transmission projects are completed, according to the PJM prematurely closing brand sure sparks the need for new infrastructure to transport electricity from other sources, but such transmission upgrades aren’t expected to be finished in Maryland until 2028, three years after the plan. Brandon George goes, Well, it’s only three years, guys. You’ll survive. I mean, now you’ll be fine. It’s your pay. Does it snow in Maryland? I don’t even know. Probably on snow. You’ll be fine. I mean, I’m actually. I’ve gone the other way on this one. Shut it down. I’m kidding. But, I mean, in all reality, folks, this is again, the problem. When you mix ideology with common sense, obviously these people have the ideology of shut coal down. The problem is they’re not thinking the second order effect. You know, the PJM, you know, again, this is a federal grid operator. Okay. So this isn’t you know, this isn’t necessarily, you know, some, you know, crazy, you know, Republican style, you know. You know, it’s not the Electric Reliability Council with. Yes, of course, they’re going to say the grids unreliable. It’s part of their job. The interesting part of the matter is, though, is that this is, again, a fairly nonpartisan. They just want to deliver energy to as much people as possible. It’s why we have these grid operators, these large scale grid operators. It’s pretty interesting. They operate 65, they serve 65 million customers and sell and coordinate movements of wholesale electricity in 13 states. So they know what they’re doing here and they’re not necessarily in it as much as you would think for profit, but they are for grid reliability. So just like that, we’re shipping off coal. Again, not a bad thing, but we’re doing it without the idea, thanks to the Sierra Club. Got to love it. [00:11:15][280.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:16] George MacNeil. Let’s go to George. I’ll tell you what, this one has been going off around the world. The article is the geopolitical problem of the U.S. a German Russo Japanese connection. He’s talking about segment connections in our podcast that Jordan was on. I go listen to that. For some folks, it’s a one hour, 50 minute podcast. And I tell you what, George is a academia, energy geopolitical guru. And what we’re talking about here is energy. You may have a country that you think is your ally. If you can’t support their low cost energy, they are not your ally. We may be losing Japan to Russia in order to get these pipelines done, and the U.S. is not going to allow that to happen. Ah, this is a problem. The reason why Germany is more important than Japan is that Germany world consists of Switzerland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, which shares a border with Germany on the Danube River. If the German oil and gas pipeline network is connected to Russia by any pipeline, then it could not only supply all the German world, but the Danube River and Slavic world as well. You see why the Nord Stream was blown up. [00:12:39][83.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:40] Yeah, I mean, this series that you’re rolling out and and will be rolling out with George McMillan is is absolutely incredible. I think you highlight some well I thought it was the Ukrainian seals. [00:12:49][9.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:50] Yeah and on a sail a sailboat they went out on a three hour cruise to blow up the pipeline and only got three out of the four. So no. And that was such a deep a deep water and then a sailboat ain’t going to get the men in there and back. So what are they? Kamikaze pipeline bombers. I’m not buying it. Chevron CEO Cautiously Optimistic on Venezuelan Guyanese Border Dispute Downplays Military conflicts. Thank goodness. Now, here’s the thing. I was on the energy transition on Monday talking to Armando David Blackmon And Tami, that’s a heck of a panel. And you get some Scooby like me on there. It’s pretty much an honor. But here’s the problem. Chevron is the only oil major to have operations in Venezuela. The company recently agreed to buy Hess Corp for 53 billion, which would give it a 30% stake in the Guyana offshore oil development. Michael, as an investor, when you’re playing with your phone, would you sit back and take a look and only calculate out, is that deal actually going to go a good thing now that this is going on or is it wasted money? Wow, that’s a 53 bit dollar retro. Yeah. [00:14:14][83.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:15] Here’s the thing. I think clearly Chevron did some due diligence on this and if they didn’t, shame on them and they deserve to lose that investment because you should have you know, it’s not hard to hire a couple consultants to map out the geopolitical risk of, you know, purchasing this asset. What did they do? They have boots on the ground. They have to be I would be shocked if they did it necessarily take this into account. I think this is having talked with the few people closer to the situation. I actually have a friend of mine who’s very close, who’s from Venezuela, and he said this is nothing more. And then I’m quoting him, I’ll leave him anonymous. But the word I got from him is this is nothing more than show from Venezuela. They’ll never actually invade. This is more so that Maduro can come back to his people during a an election and say, well, the reason why we don’t have any electricity is because the Americans cut us out of Guyana, which I’m sure maybe there’s some territorial dispute there, but that’s not going to change how this will, in my opinion, outside of a military. Conflict. Nothing’s going to change hands. And again, as Mike Wirth, CEO of Chevron said, that’s unlikely. So I’m with him. But hopefully they did their due diligence on this. [00:15:18][63.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:15:19] I think there’s a little more to this story than your friend is then concerned. And you have Venezuela, who used to have a gigantic oilfield equipment and everything else. They have destroyed it. And so instead of taking $1,000,000 the way that he has has kept control, the dictator there, he pays his generals extremely well. Million bucks here, million bucks there. The generals then turn around and pay the colonels. Colonels go around there and then the sergeants go down the street, beat the snot out of the Venezuelans to keep everybody in line. That is how it’s been done. The money has been coming from the Venezuelan oil, and they have not been putting CapEx back in. They don’t have the talent. They don’t have the offshore hands. They’ve got rid of everybody. And so this is a problem. They’re just skimming any money that they can do. And that in Guyana, Shell has gotten in the game and they’ve got it. You’ve got the old diamond back out there, you’ve got Hess, Exxon’s there, got Anadarko, Exxon’s there. I mean, everybody is sitting over in Guyana drilling. This is a big deal. I, I think it’s. [00:16:38][79.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:16:38] One of the last few unexplored or hot new offshore. [00:16:41][3.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:16:42] Target. Absolutely. And I think it’s going to be a bigger problem. And it’s because Putin has been to his team, he’s been talking to Maduro, and there is a bigger statement going on there and is between Putin in China. And. Bitterman beyond combustion, how to triple oil sands value, reduce emissions and create advanced material industry for 2% of battery subsidies. This is crazy. First, let me give Terry Etam a shoutout. Michael, if you’ll scroll down to the bottom of the article and Andy, producer Andy, if you could roll the picture out. Terry sent me a book and he says he signed it. Stu you are the best podcast host in the industry. Grumpy Terry Etam. That was so nice of him to sign that book that it was really, really pretty cool. You know, I have to say I was the best podcast host. Notice he didn’t put your name on there. Okay, so let’s go over here to this article. What is some phenomenally large energy material? Breakthroughs were right in front of us. Dude, I don’t care. I’m energy agnostic. I’d love to say let’s do it. Beyond combustion to how to triple the. Let’s see here. We might get more comfortable on nuclear energy. The world seems hell bent on carbon free energy. And the only way that’s going to happen is if we make up a billion is nuclear power. Well, I agree that nuclear has got to happen. Let’s go where he is talking about this. Okay. So coming out of the oil sands, just a real quick update on the oil sands. Oil sands. When they get done with that, it is the cleanest land on the planet. So, I mean, Canadians do a great job regulatory issues up there on that. So the barrel regimen as a whole, the BBC White paper estimates the following benefits If 1 million barrels per day measurement is sold to refineries at $50 per barrel. After diligent removal, the revenue is 18 billion per year. If the same volume was used to create BBC products, the potential revenue is 42 billion. The number includes the value is plus the value of the light ends remaining at 14. Unbelievable. If you take a look at how all of this could come back around and. [00:19:21][159.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:19:21] It seems like they’re they’re funding it at just 30 million a year. That’s how much is coming in the Canadian government. They could they could have 40 billion on the table. And instead they’re like, we’re just going to invest 30 million. Zain. [00:19:35][13.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:19:35] It is. Terry Etam, I just want to give you a shout out. Don’t tell him that was my Biden imitation again. Don’t tell Terry that he’s a good guy. I mean, it doesn’t make sense. Here’s some energy technology that makes sense. [00:19:51][16.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:19:53] And it’s a way to sustainably make sure. I mean, if if we’re all about ESG folks, this is stuff that can help. So we love Terry bringing that up. [00:19:53][0.0][1170.4]

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The failure of Cop28 to call for a phase-out of fossil fuels is “devastating” and “dangerous” given the urgent need for action to tackle the climate crisis, scientists have said.

One called it a “tragedy for the planet and our future” while another said it was the “dream outcome” for the fossil fuel industry.

The UN climate summit ended on Wednesday with a compromise deal that called for a “transition away” from fossil fuels. The stronger term “phase-out” had been backed by 130 of the 198 countries negotiating in Dubai but was blocked by petrostates including Saudi Arabia.

The deal was hailed as historic as it was the first citing of fossil fuels, the root cause of the climate crisis, in 30 years of climate negotiations. But scientists said the agreement contained many loopholes and did not match the severity of the climate emergency.

“The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was devastating,” said Prof Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. “To ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ was weak tea at best. It’s like promising your doctor that you will ‘transition away from doughnuts’ after being diagnosed with diabetes.”

Dr Magdalena Skipper, the editor in chief of the science journal Nature, said: “The science is clear – fossil fuels must go. World leaders will fail their people and the planet unless they accept this reality.”

An editorial in Nature said the failure over the phase-out was “more than a missed opportunity”, it was “dangerous” and ran “counter to the core goals laid down in the 2015 Paris climate agreement” of limiting global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels.

“The climate doesn’t care who emits greenhouse gases,” the editorial continued. “There is only one viable path forward, and that is for everybody to phase out almost all fossil fuels as quickly as possible.”

Sir David King, the chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group and a former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “The wording of the deal is feeble. Ensuring 1.5C remains viable will require total commitment to a range of far-reaching measures, including full fossil fuel phase-out.”

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ENB Pub Note: This is the 4th article in a series with George McMillian, CEO of McMillian and Associates. The other articles and the first podcast are listed below. Buckle up, get your popcorn, and flight suit for some eye-opening conversations.   Please follow George on his LinkedIn HERE.

Introduction—Cold War History of Soviet Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines

The indication that Russian oil and especially natural gas shipped by pipeline is the biggest threat to geopolitical realignment can be seen by the reaction of the Unites States as Russia began developing its oil and Gas fields in the Caspian, Ural and Arctic regions in the 1950s and then began constructing pipelines to the Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern and Central Europe.

As anticipated, the logical extension of the pipelines moving Westward would not be routed through the Warsaw Pact countries but through neutral Austria into Southern Germany from the Southern branch of the Bruzhba Pipeline and from Poland to East Germany and on to West Germany from the Northern branch of the Bruzhba pipeline.

Following Mahan’s differentiation of “production” and “wealth,” petroleum production does not become wealth until it is traded for goods that a country wants but does not produce. In this case, the Soviet Union wanted convertible Western currencies so they could buy products and reverse-engineer them.

“Russia Will Freeze and Invade Europe”

The West always put forth the narrative that the Soviet Union could blackmail Western Europe by shutting off the pipelines during the Winter. But that threat diminishes when one considers that if the Western countries maintain the minimum three-month strategic petroleum reserve as they are supposed to, then they would have plenty of time to buy energy supplies elsewhere, albeit it at a higher price. So why are they discouraged from buying as much oil and natural gas as they can at a lower price?

The reason why the US is so strongly opposed to its Western Europe allies buying cheaper Russian oil and natural gas via pipeline lies in the logic of the “Instruments of National Power,” that is, the way a nation’s power is measured. The two primary measures are PMESII and DIME analysis: Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructural, and Informational (PMESII) effectiveness of a country or the shorter Diplomatic, Infrastructural/Informational, Military and Economic (DIME) measure of effectiveness.

While the acronyms are sequenced to create the best pneumonic device for the sake of memory, the behavioral reality is that humans always employ “armed guards” to protect their investments. They know from Solow-Swan models that infrastructural investment and integration promote economic integration and expansion which always culminates in enhanced diplomatic and military armed alliances.

After 1973, when the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) left the Bretton Woods gold standard and shifted to the floating petrodollar system after the Yom Kippur War, an additional concern arose that the US wanted to maintain the petrodollar trading scheme. Since the 1973 Petrodollar was agreed to by the US and the KSA, and OPEC accepted the arrangement in 1975, the US always relied on the global petrodollar demand to finance its yearly budget deficits.

It might have taken a few decades, but since the Global War on Terror (GWOT) the US budget deficits have risen from $5 trillion to almost $34 trillion dollars. It appears that as the US national debt rises the more important the external use and demand of the US dollar externalizes inflation to the rest of the world.

The external demand of the US petrodollar is now what keeps the US from experiencing Weimar Republic-style inflation.

The Post-Reagan Budget Deficits

After the increases in national debt during the Reagan administration and the profligate spending in the post-GWOT Bush and Obama administrations, the original reason for the US to prevent its European allies from buying cheap Russian oil and natural gas shifted beyond the initial “DIME” concerns to the potentially catastrophic mass exodus of its allies from using the “petrodollar” in their energy purchases.

Since in 2023, the US has approximately $34 trillion in accumulated debt, plus three or four times that in unfunded social service mandates and future pension liabilities, the petrodollar aspect is now paramount.

As mentioned in a previous article, and as will be restated in future articles in this series, there is no way the US can (a) allow cheap oil and natural gas from Russia to be shipped to any ally in Europe or the Pacific Rim, and then (b) allow the end user to pay directly in rubles, cutting out the Wall Street middle man thereby exiting the petrodollar system and paying in other currencies.

Source: EIA

The US—to maintain its Superpower status and avoid Weimar Republic-style inflation—must focus on preventing “a” its allies from infrastructural “DIME” integration from occurring and “b” its allies from paying in non-dollars.

The US/UK/NATO Counter Strategy of the 1990s

The US depends on maintaining Western Europe as an ally on the Atlantic side, and Japan and South Korean as allies on the Pacific side to keep the global economic and political center of gravity in Washington and London. The more one understands the “DIME” national power sequence in conjunction with the Five Power Center Doctrine of George Kennan (see John Lewis Gaddis “Strategies of Containment,” 1982) the more one will realize this necessity.

The alternatives—should the US allow Russian oil and natural gas to be delivered by pipeline to Western Europe—is that the global political center of gravity will be shared between Washington and London and Berlin and Moscow, leaving Beijing isolated in this scenario.

Foreseeably, by thwarting Russian oil and gas delivery by pipeline to Western Europe at all costs (the topic of the next two articles), and trying to isolate both Russia and China, the US has compelled Russia and China to integrate instead. In its attempt to maintain its sole Superpower status, the United States is risking its financial well-being and that of its allies. This could quite possibly chase its European and Pacific Rim allies into the safety of the Russian oil and natural gas network.

Types of Geopolitical Theory

It is important to understand the DIME analysis of national economic, diplomatic and military power relationships in the context of post-Mahan sea power versus sea power and post-Macinder sea power versus land power geostrategic theories.

In terms of Mackinder’s geopolitical theory, it is important to understand that Russia is in the “heartland” of Eurasia and is using a Haushofer “land-power” style integration of Eurasia. China is using both a land power integration of Eurasia strategy with its original Silk Road Initiative and a sea power strategy with its maritime Belt and Road Initiative.

In contrast, the US and the UK appear to be employing a Spykman-based “sea power” divide-and-conquer “balance of power” strategies to thwart the global economic and political center of gravity from shifting to a Berlin-Moscow or Moscow-Beijing combination. But by trying to maintain sole superpower status with full spectrum dominance, the Anglosphere risks the global political centers of gravity shifting to a Berlin-Moscow-Beijing alliance if the Alternative for Deutschland Party defeats Olaf Scholz in the next election cycle in Germany.

[end]

The other three articles and podcast episode in this series.

The US Cut-off their European Allies from Affordable Energy—Now What?

Russian Natural Gas and Geopolitical Realignment—a reverse domino theory

The Geopolitical Problem of the US—a German-Russo-Japanese Connection

ENB #160 What is the United States afraid of? George McMillan, CEO of McMillian Associates, stopped by the Energy News Beat podcast. – UPDATE

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Human breathing contributes to global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in PLoS One. The authors argued that human respiration’s contribution to climate change has been underestimated and merits further study.

After measuring the gas composition in the exhaled breaths of 328 study participants, the researchers concluded human breath comprises 0.05% of the UK’s methane emissions and 0.1% of its nitrous oxide. Both of those gasses “have a much higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide,” the study notes.

“Exhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming,” the researchers, led by atmospheric physicist Nicholas Cowan of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, wrote. “We would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible.”

While Cowan explained that “CO2 contribution in human breath to climate change is essentially zero” because plants absorb nearly all the carbon dioxide humans breathe out, the other two gasses are left in the atmosphere. Methane traps 80 times the amount of heat as carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere, though this potency decreases over time.

A detailed analysis of test subjects’ diets failed to yield any indication that meat eaters produced more of either gas. While all test subjects exhaled nitrous oxide, only 31% exhaled methane. These individuals, referred to as “methane producers” in the paper, were more likely to be female and over 30 years of age, though the researchers were unable to determine why this was the case.

The study authors cautioned that their research only looked at breath and called for further research into the total picture of human gas emissions, insisting it could reveal more about the “impacts of an aging population and shifting diets” on the planet.

In recent years, environmental campaigners have focused on methane emissions from cows, whose herbivorous diet is broken down by methane-producing bacteria in their multiple stomachs. Policymakers’ focus on the resulting methane-tainted belches and farts have been the subject of much parody from climate change skeptics.

The UK has legally committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990. Residents have been strongly encouraged to reduce meat consumption in order to achieve this goal, with some estimates placing the share of global greenhouse gas emissions from raising livestock for meat at 15%. However, the researchers behind Wednesday’s study pointed out that shifting to a high-fiber vegetarian diet could potentially cause more methane and nitrous oxide emissions, a phenomenon they called “pollution swapping.”

Source: Rt.com

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GM plans to lay off about 1,300 workers in Michigan starting early next year due to vehicles they produce ending production.
The largest of the layoffs were expected. They include 945 workers at Orion Assembly who build Chevrolet Bolt models, which are ending production after this year.
The other 369 workers to be laid off are at GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly/Stamping, which will no longer produce the Chevrolet Camaro.

DETROIT — General Motors plans to lay off about 1,300 workers in Michigan starting early next year due to vehicles they produce ending production, the company disclosed in state documents.

The largest of the layoffs were expected. They include 945 workers at Orion Assembly who build Chevrolet Bolt models, which are ending production after this year.

The final production date is scheduled for the week of Dec. 18. However, layoffs will not occur until Jan. 1.

GM will retool Orion to build electric trucks. The plant is expected to come back online in late 2025.

The other 369 workers to be laid off are at GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly/Stamping, which will no longer produce the Chevrolet Camaro. GM had previously announced the end of the vehicle but not how many employees would be laid off at the plant, which continues to produce Cadillac sedans.

“Lansing Grand River Assembly informed employees today that the plant will adjust staffing levels due to the end of Camaro production,” GM said in a statement. “As a result, about 350 employees will be affected beginning Jan. 2. GM anticipates having job opportunities for all impacted team members per the provisions of the UAW-GM National Agreement.”

Layoffs at Grand River will begin Jan. 2 and continue through March, according to the WARN notice documents.

Source: Cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org

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Energy News BeatGlobal coal use is expected to reach a record high in 2023 as demand in emerging and developing economies remains strong, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

The demand for coal is seen rising 1.4 percent in 2023, surpassing 8.5 billion tonnes for the first time as usage in India is expected to grow 8 percent and that in China up 5 percent due to rising electricity demand and weak hydropower output, IEA said in a report released on Friday.

Coal is the largest energy-related source of the CO2 emissions responsible along with other greenhouse gases for global warming.

Half of the world’s coal use comes from China, the agency said, so the outlook for coal will be significantly affected in the coming years by the pace of clean energy deployment, weather conditions, and structural shifts in the Chinese economy.

Coal use is set to drop by about 20 percent this year in both the European Union and the United States, the report said.

The agency said it was difficult to forecast demand in Russia, currently the fourth-largest coal consumer, because of the continuing conflict in Ukraine.

But the IEA noted that overall coal use is not expected to drop until 2026, when the major expansion of renewable capacity in the next three years should help lower usage by 2.3 percent compared with 2023 levels, even with the absence of stronger clean energy policies.

Global consumption is forecast to remain well over 8 billion tonnes in 2026, the report said. To reach goals set by the Paris climate agreement – reached in 2015 by governments who agreed to phase out fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy in the second half of the century – the use of unabated coal would need to fall significantly faster, it added.

At the United Nations COP28 climate talks in Dubai this week, world leaders agreed to a deal that would, for the first time, push nations to transition away from fossil fuels to avert the worst effects of climate change.

However, the agreement did not go so far as to seek a “phase-out” of fossil fuels, for which more than 100 nations had pleaded. Rather, it called for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade”.

“The absence of explicit ‘phase-out’ language in the draft is significant, as it is a more measurable and definitive term, sending a strong message globally about a total shift away from fossil fuels,” Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, told Al Jazeera.

“The current terminology – ‘transitioning away’ – is somewhat ambiguous and allows for varying interpretations.”

The post Global coal use to reach record high in 2023, energy agency says appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

The House passed the Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act, aiming to block an EPA rule seen as a backdoor mandate for electric vehicles.

The rule would require a significant percentage of new vehicle purchases to be electric by 2032.

The Act received bipartisan support, with concerns about affordability, consumer choice, and the impact on the American auto industry. (Trending: Tucker Carlson Reveals ‘Secret’ Project He’s Been Working On For Months)

Critics argue that the rule would increase vehicle costs, limit consumer choice, and benefit China at the expense of American energy security.

“It takes away what we’ve always thought of as one of the most important principles of Americanism, and that’s choice,” Rep. Tim Walberg said.

“The passage of the CARS Act is a massive victory for every consumer and the entire American auto industry.”

“Biden’s mandate has always been unrealistic and a textbook study on how central planning and Bidenomics simply do not work. Mandating EVs has never been a responsible or affordable solution,” Walberg pressed.

“Americans should always have the option to buy whatever car suits them the best and the House has taken a massive step toward ensuring that opportunity still exists,” he said.

“Just last week, nearly 4,000 car dealers sent a letter to the Biden administration asking them to reconsider their EV mandate, citing a lack of demand from consumers. Today, with the passage of the CARS Act, the House showed we’re listening.”

“Auto Innovators does not believe [the proposed standards] can be met without substantially increasing the cost of vehicles, reducing consumer choice, and disadvantaging major portions of the United States population,” said John Bozzella, CEO of Alliance for Automotive Innovation.

“Taken together, the proposed GHG (greenhouse gas) and criteria pollutant standards are so stringent as to set a de facto BEV (battery electric vehicle) mandate,” he added.

“Banning vehicle and fuel technologies based on just one category of emissions is unlawful, illogical and bad for consumers, families and our national security,” American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers Vice President of Government Relations Aaron Ringel said.

“It would trade our hard-earned energy security for dependence on China.”

The legislation is now heading to the Senate, with President Biden indicating a potential veto if it passes.

Source: Msn.com

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Energy News Beat

The leader of the Texas energy grid has joined a group of U.S. energy and utilities leaders sounding the alarm about the increased risk of blackouts during the approaching winter months.

According to the Houston Chronicle’s James Osborne, Pablo Vegas, the Electric Relability Council of Texas’ CEO, said at an event hosted by the trade group U.S. Energy Association that investors aren’t putting enough capital into developing natural gas pipelines, transmission lines and other power grid infrastructure.

The post ERCOT joins group of U.S. utilities warning about blackouts this winter appeared first on Energy News Beat.