Nearly 80 million folks have been beneath alerts within the US north-east and midwest yesterday as temperatures in some municipalities reached file highs in a take a look at to the nation’s rickety energy grid.
In different information, the Financial Times has a brand new Big Read this morning on Russia’s grip on nuclear energy. Despite sanctions on its economic system, the Kremlin continues to be an unrivalled exporter of nuclear energy vegetation, constructing greater than half of all reactors beneath development globally. Read how Moscow is using these projects to wield global influence.
Data Drill appears at a brand new evaluation from the World Bank exhibiting gas flaring is at a four-year excessive.
Thanks for studying,
Amanda
New report offers sobering view of the energy transition
Every 12 months the Statistical Review of World Energy offers a behemoth of data on the state of the worldwide energy market. This 12 months’s findings spotlight the world’s insatiable demand for energy and the necessity to pace up the tempo of decarbonisation.
Here are our 4 essential takeaways from this 12 months’s report:
Fossil gas consumption — and emissions — are at file highs
Countries burnt file quantities of oil and coal final 12 months, sending global fossil fuel consumption and emissions to all-time highs, the Energy Institute reported. Oil demand grew 2.6 per cent, surpassing 100mn barrels per day for the primary time.
Meanwhile, the share of fossil fuels within the energy combine declined barely by half a share level, however nonetheless made up greater than 81 per cent of consumption.
While EI’s estimates are largely in step with the International Energy Agency’s, its authors supply a extra sombre view of the tempo of the energy transition in contrast with the Paris-based watchdog.
“Today’s new data provides little encouragement in terms of global climate change mitigation,” stated Nick Wayth, chief govt of EI. “Arguably, the transition has not even started.”
But the outlook is uneven . . .
The future for fossil fuels varies drastically based mostly on the place you look. In superior economies like Europe and the United States, fossil gas demand is more likely to have peaked, says EI.
Fossil gas consumption in Europe fell almost 6 per cent in 2023 from the earlier 12 months, making up lower than 70 per cent of the continent’s energy combine for the primary time because the industrial revolution. Gas demand fell 7 per cent, with a milder than anticipated winter, effectivity upgrades and modifications to client behaviour driving the decline.
In the US, fossil gas demand dipped nearly 2 per cent, making up 80 per cent of the energy combine. EI suggests the decline in fossil gas demand on this planet’s largest oil-producing nation might proceed no matter who wins the November election. Former president Donald Trump has promised to double down on fossil fuels if re-elected and permit producers to “drill, baby drill”.
But Wayth informed reporters earlier this week that “regardless of who resides at the White House, the US seems likely to follow the European trend”.
A distinct view from India and Africa
The image appears utterly completely different within the world south. India ramped up its fossil gas consumption by 8 per cent final 12 months, consuming extra coal than Europe and North America mixed, says EI.
In Africa, the continent’s energy consumption declined general at a time when the remainder of the world is burning an increasing number of energy, a mirrored image of its rising energy poverty disaster. Africa’s energy demand, 90 per cent of which comes from fossil fuels, fell by 0.5 per cent final 12 months.
“At the moment it seems that Africa can neither carbonise nor decarbonise,” stated Wayth, warning that the stark transitions between superior economies and their creating counterparts put world efforts to fight local weather change in danger.
“The danger of accepting this polarised, multi-speed trend as inevitable is that it doesn’t match up to the urgency of what the climate science is telling us.”
China is driving world renewables progress
Renewable energy technology reached a file excessive in 2023, leaping 12 per cent from the 12 months prior, based on EI, with China making up greater than a 3rd of the whole provide, excluding hydropower.
The world’s largest energy client and carbon emitter is quickly deploying renewable energy, making up greater than 60 per cent of worldwide installations final 12 months. While China consumes about 82 per cent of its energy from fossil fuels, its emissions depth has continued to lower even because the nation will increase its urge for food for energy, falling 15 per cent over the previous decade.
Data Drill
Oil and gas producers are burning extra gas at four-year highs, says a new report from the World Bank this morning.
Global gas flaring jumped 7 per cent final 12 months, reaching 148bn cubic metres, the best since 2019 and a reversal of the downward pattern noticed prior to now two years, the report stated. The enhance in flaring is estimated to have contributed a further 23mn tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
Russia, Iran, Iraq and the United States lead the world in flaring volumes, making up a bit of greater than half of all gas burnt. The US noticed one of many largest annual will increase in flaring, with volumes up 21 per cent from the earlier 12 months.
Fifty fossil gas firms pledged to cease routine flaring by the tip of the last decade on the COP28 convention in Dubai final 12 months. The burning of extra gas releases substantial quantities of carbon dioxide and methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the environment.
Job strikes
Western Energy Services appointed Gavin Lane as chief monetary officer of the Canadian oilfield providers firm. Lane joins from Indigena Drilling.
Gregory Cameron will succeed Christopher Bohn as govt vice-president and chief monetary officer of CF Industries, a producer of hydrogen and nitrogen merchandise.
Linda Heller will be part of Solid Power, a battery start-up, as chief monetary officer and treasurer. Heller joins from Swell Energy.
Petrobras has appointed Fernando Melgarejo as chief monetary officer, Sylvia dos Anjos as chief of exploration and manufacturing and Renata Baruzzi as chief of engineering, expertise and innovation of the Brazilian state-controlled oil firm.
Louisiana Republican congressman Garret Graves, who serves on the US House Natural Resources Committee, stated he wouldn’t search re-election.