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The United Arab Emirates has vowed to retaliate against Houthi militants for a deadly attack on its capital Abu Dhabi on Monday that killed three people, as fresh tensions in the region helped push oil prices to their highest level in seven years. International benchmark Brent crude futures rose 0.9% to $87.24 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures jumped 1.6% to $85.16 per barrel. Both oil contracts notched their highest level since October 2014 earlier in the day after a subdued trading day on Monday as U.S. markets were closed for a public holiday. Energy analysts have attributed...

Morgan Stanley expects Brent crude to reach $90 per barrel later this year. This is also the price forecast of Goldman. JP Morgan recently said that crude could reach and exceed $100 this year, noting the decline in OPEC spare production capacity. The latest to join the bullish choir is Vitol, whose head for Asian operations told Bloomberg last week that oil had further up to go because of tight supply. What this means for the Biden administration and its efforts to keep gasoline affordable for voters ahead of the midterms is nothing good. Perhaps more SPR releases could be...

Over the past three years, dozens of cities across the country have banned natural gas hookups in newly constructed buildings as part of a growing campaign to reduce carbon emissions from homes. The movement scored a major victory last month, when New York City’s outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a ban on gas hookups in new buildings. Though new laws apply to the entire home, the policy debate often focuses on one room in particular: the kitchen. Gas stoves account for a relatively small share of the emissions released by a typical household, but they’ve become a...

How close would a solar and wind-dependent power grid have come to giving us the electricity we needed during the three-week freeze in Alberta where the average temperature was -22 C from Dec. 15 to Jan. 9?... Alberta needs a supply of about 10,500 MW (megawatts) on average, said Mackay. If they are running at maximum capacity, solar can provide 736 MW and wind 2,269 MW.... If we had been reliant on far more solar and wind, how would we have done? “You’d have to start with rolling blackouts or brownouts,” Mackay said. “If we lost the bulk of our...

FRANCE is reportedly facing blackouts as 10 of its nuclear reactors have shut down, spelling chaos for President Emmanuel Macron.The latest nuclear shutdown in France was announced by state energy giant EDF today. They said cracks were found near welds on a safety cooling system for two reactors at the Civaux plant in central France during routine safety checks. And EDF decided to shut down another two reactors at its Chooz plant in the eastern Ardennes region as a precaution because they are built to the same design. Karine Herviou, deputy chief executive of the French nuclear safety regulator IRSN,...

Virginia enacted a Clean Economy Act; other states have implemented similar laws. AOC demands a national Green New Deal; President Biden is imposing one via executive decree. The United Kingdom is determined to reach Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions; the European Union is pursuing a Green Deal. All these policies send energy prices rocketing upward, eliminating jobs and killing people. Instead of reducing emissions, they simply move them overseas, where they combine with massive air and water pollution, habitat destruction and wildlife decimation – as China and other countries burn more coal, oil and gas every year, to improve their...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two months after U.S. President Joe Biden announced an unprecedented effort among major oil consuming economies to work together to bring down rising fuel prices, prices are again approaching multi-year highs. And Biden has few options to stop the rally. Global benchmark Brent crude passed $84 a barrel on Wednesday and leading analysts are forecasting that oil could pass $100 a barrel in the first quarter. Biden spearheaded a coordinated release of oil from strategic reserves with Japan, India, South Korea, Britain and China in November that helped quell prices - even though, in the end,...

German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht on Thursday warned against drawing a link between the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, meant to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany, and the differences with Moscow over Ukraine. "We should not drag (Nord Stream 2) into this conflict," Lambrecht told the broadcaster rbb in an interview. "We need to solve this conflict, and we need to solve it in talks - that's the opportunity that we have at the moment, and we should use it rather than draw a link to projects that have no connection to this conflict."

The Biden administration laid out an ambitious plan Wednesday for government-funded wind farms along the east coast, which it said would sustain millions of Americans’ energy needs. Multiple federal agencies are planning to collaborate on the project, which will be completed by 2030, Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland said during a renewable energy conference in Boston on Wednesday. Overall, at least 30 gigawatts will be produced by offshore wind farms by decade’s end. “The Interior Department is laying out an ambitious roadmap as we advance the Administration’s plans to confront climate change, create good-paying jobs, and accelerate the nation’s transition...

Yesterday’s inflation report was the worst in 40 years. But at least today’s Producer Price Index Final Demand is down slightly from November. But PPI Final Demand YoY is still roaring at 9.7%. The producer price index for final demand increased 0.2% from the prior month and 9.7% from a year earlier, Labor Department data showed Thursday. The annual advance was the largest in figures back to 2010. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the PPI climbed 0.5% in December and was up 8.3% from a year earlier. Too much Federal government spending, too much Fed monetary stimulus, Omicron...

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden announced Wednesday it had earmarked some 6 billion kronor ($661 million) for a temporary scheme to help the most affected households across the Scandinavian country to cope with high electricity bills this winter. Home owners in Sweden have already started adopting strategies to lower their consumption — turning down the heating, closing off rooms, using alternative heat sources like wood log burners and wearing thick woolly socks. There have been reports of people taking bank loans to be able to pay their electricity bill. “I understand that people are worried about their finances,” Sweden’s Energy Minister...

This is like the Samuel Beckett play “Waiting For Godot.” Except we are waiting for Jerome Powell and The Federal Reserve to do something. December’s consumer price index (CPI) is out and its a doozy, though expected. The CPI year-over-year (YoY) rose 7% in December. If we exclude food and energy, CPI rose by 5.5% YoY. Thanks to Biden’s assault on the energy sector, energy prices are up nearly 50% YoY. REAL average hourly earnings YoY? It has crashed to -2.32%. And with 7% inflation, the Taylor Rule model suggests a Fed Funds Target rate of … 17.84%. Bear in...

To say investors are bullish on oil again would be an understatement. In a year that has begun with serious uncertainty—largely about the path of interest rates and tech stocks — a positive call on oil is as close to a consensus opinion as it gets. In fact, traders are making bets again that U.S. oil prices will rise above $100. It would take a major surge to get there. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, were down 0.2% on Monday to $78.72 per barrel. There are several reasons for the resurgent bullishness. For one thing, oil...

NEW YORK, NY, CHICAGO, IL, AND MONTRÉAL, QC – JANUARY 7, 2022 – Today, Blackstone Inc. (NYSE: BX) announced that funds managed by Blackstone Infrastructure Partners have entered into a definitive agreement with Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and Invenergy for an approximately $3 billion equity investment in Invenergy Renewables Holdings LLC (“Invenergy Renewables” or “the company”), the largest private renewable energy company in North America. Blackstone’s investment will provide capital to accelerate Invenergy’s renewables development activities. CDPQ and Invenergy management remain the majority owners of the company and Invenergy will continue as managing member.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has dismissed two more top security officials following the worst unrest in three decades in the central Asian country. Authorities said the situation has stabilized with forces from the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization fully deployed. Russia's state news agency Tass said nearly 6,000 people, including foreigners, were arrested in last week's violent protests. Reports said at least 164 people were killed during the unrest, which mostly took place in the country's biggest city, Almaty.

Skyrocketing gas prices are sparking major concerns in the UK, with households bracing for higher bills and food prices. The energy crisis has already hit millions of Brits, but is set to hit more still. The UK is highly dependent on consumer spending to generate output, indicating the economy could still be in the mire heading into the spring. A wave of concern over the swelling cost of living is sweeping across Britain. While households are bracing for higher tax bills and are already being stung by food prices leaping, it is swelling energy costs that will hit hardest in...

Gravity-based energy storage technology company Energy Vault has formed a strategic partnership with non-ferrous metals smelting and refinery company Korea Zinc, including a US$50 million investment commitment. The announcement, made yesterday, comes as Swiss-American company Energy Vault targets a business combination with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital Corporation II. The transaction is expected to close during this quarter and the combined company, to be named Energy Vault Holdings, will list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as a result. Energy Vault said in October as it announced the intended merger that it has private investment in public...

Inflation continues to skyrocket nationwide, biting into the slight wage gains American workers have experienced so far this year. Prices for food, energy, and other essentials have all surged since the enactment of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill earlier this year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like these price increases are on pace to subside anytime soon. It’s possible inflation could even get worse, particularly as it relates to energy prices, if congressional Democrats get their way and enact their multi-trillion dollar reconciliation bill. Although the details of their bill change on a near daily basis, one thing remains constant:...

As the world looks to electrify vehicles and store renewable power, one giant challenge looms: what will happen to all the old lithium batteries?... ...In your average battery recycling plant, battery parts are shredded down into a powder, and then that powder is either melted (pyrometallurgy) or dissolved in acid (hydrometallurgy). But Li batteries are made up of lots of different parts that could explode if they're not disassembled carefully. And even when Li batteries are broken down this way, the products aren't easy to reuse.... ...The current shortcomings in Li battery recycling isn't the only reason they are an...

Between 2017 and 2021, Environmental Progress and I researched and published dozens of articles, testified before Congress, and authored a book, Apocalypse Never, arguing that weather-dependent renewables were making electricity increasingly unreliable and expensive, and making the United States, Europe, and Asia, dangerously dependent on natural gas.In response, there was an organized and somewhat successful effort by progressive climate-renewables activists to cut off our funding, censor us on Facebook, and prevent me from testifying before Congress.But now, one of the biggest boosters of natural gas and renewables, media giant Bloomberg, whose owner, Michael Bloomberg, is directly invested in natural gas...