The electric vehicle manufacturer is having a dark year in the stock market. And those difficulties worsened on Dec. 13 with another sharp drop in the stock price of almost 4%.
In all, the Tesla stock lost has lost 54.2% of its value in 2022, translating into a drop in market capitalization of nearly $600 billion. Tesla (TSLA) – Get Free Report is down 60%, compared to its all-time high reached in November 2021.
Most worryingly, on Dec. 13, shares of the Model Y maker were down while the broader market was up. This stock market debacle is now causing a heated debate within the Tesla community, where fans and individual investors are divided, as they see their investments melt away day by day.
“$TSLA is now down -61.2% from its all-time high in Nov 2021, officially making this the largest drawdown in $TSLA stock history,” Sawyer Merritt, who describes himself as Tesla investor, posted on Twitter on Dec. 13. “Conversely, $TSLA shares are trading at their cheapest-level ever (from a forward earnings perspective).”
Disgruntled Shareholders
For Leo KoGuan, one of Tesla’s largest individual shareholders, the current fall is not explained by the fundamentals of the company, but more by external factors.
“No longer about fundamental of Tesla but smart and powerful negative poison gazing Tesla,” KoGuan tweeted on Dec. 13. “We are shareholders are accidental war casualties. The board is established to protect SH. The board members are smart, hopefully they will perform shock therapy to resuscitate stock price.”
Gary Black, another very vocal Tesla shareholder, believes that one such external factor is Tesla’s neglect by Elon Musk. This abandonment is due to the fact that the billionaire is focused on revamping the social network Twitter, which he acquired at a cost of $44 billion.
Since the finalization of the deal on Oct. 27, the serial entrepreneur has only talked about Twitter on a daily basis. He has also become very political and now sees himself as a vindicator.
Given that the old Twitter team had sanctioned the conservatives, Musk made it his mission to rebalance things in favor of the Republicans, in the name of free speech. But this approach frightened advertisers. Musk also notably attacked Apple (AAPL) – Get Free Report. Many experts and Tesla fans believe that these clashes are now causing damage to the Tesla brand.
“I have utmost respect for @elonmusk as a manager, leader, and visionary,” Black said on Dec. 13. “Just wish he’d hire someone to fix Twitter and focus on $TSLA as CEO with all its opportunities and challenges and which could be a $3T market cap company in 5 years.”
‘Tesla Will Be Great Long-Term’
Faced with disillusioned investors, Musk has just made a vigorous defense of Tesla, intended to appease their anger and frustration.
“Most of @elonmusk’s net worth is in $TSLA and he doesn’t seem worried. That’s because he knows Tesla is going to be ok,” one Twitter user posted on Dec. 13.
“Tesla will be great long-term,” the billionaire commented. “But doesn’t control macroeconomic tides.”
This defense is in line with his statements a few days earlier.
“Macro conditions are difficult: energy in Europe, real estate in China & crazy Fed rates in USA,” Musk said on Dec. 8.
Musk’s analysis seems to be shared by tech analyst Pierre Ferragu, who believes that Tesla’s fundamentals are solid and therefore cannot explain the stock’s fall. For Ferragu, the electric vehicle manufacturer does not have a demand problem and should continue to dominate its rivals in the long term.
“Tesla is progressively reducing prices to boost demand and absorb capacity growth. It has the cost trajectory to do so without hurting gross margins: Subsidies in the US, localized production in Europe, two giga factories ramping, absorbing fixed costs,” Ferragu said.
But for individual investors, the only way to halt Tesla’s stock slide is with a big development, which could come with the announcement of a stock buyback plan or a positive update on Q4 vehicle delivery targets.
“If the BOD of tesla made an announcement on what’s happening with tesla leadership. Someone should be interm CEO. The stock decline would end. It’s that simple. @MartinViecha $tsla,” Tesla’s investor Ross Gerber tweeted at the company.
Barkcamp State Park is among the few places where visitors can experience Ohio’s forests as they existed before European settlement. Once the site of a historic logging camp, today it’s a destination for camping, fishing, and other outdoor recreation.
It’s also a place that could see new pressure for oil and gas development if Ohio lawmakers approve lame-duck legislation this month that would remove barriers to drilling under public lands.
Neither supporters nor critics have singled out specific parks that could be of interest to the industry, but a planning document from a previous governor’s administration reveals at least three areas where oil and gas extraction might occur. They include Barkcamp, as well as Wolf Run State Park and Suncreek Fish State Forest.
That document — a strategic communications plan developed by members of the Kasich administration and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 2012 — ignited a political controversy known as Frackgate after it became public two years later. It also predicted the backlash that would be likely to follow any proposal to drill under state parks.
“Vocal opponents of this initiative will react emotionally, communicate aggressively to the news media and online, and attempt to cast it as unprecedented and risky state policy,” the communication plan said.
For over a decade, Ohio law has said an agency “may” lease land for oil and gas drilling. House Bill 507, which passed the Ohio Senate last week without any public testimony on its last-minute amendments, would change that to say the agency “shall” lease the land “in good faith.”
If the bill becomes law, “the state agency essentially has to — must — lease the land when the oil and gas company shows up at the door and demands the lease,” said attorney Nathan Johnson, director of public lands for the Ohio Environmental Council. In his view, the amendment would give free rein to oil and gas companies, with few safeguards for competing public interests or the environment.
A 2011 law created an oil and gas leasing commission and outlined a framework for it to decide whether to grant permits for drilling and to enter into leases through a competitive bidding process. Lawmakers passed the bill, and Gov. John Kasich signed it roughly a year before another law opened the state to widespread fracking and horizontal drilling.
By the summer of 2012, members of the Kasich administration, Ohio Department of Natural Resources and others put together the strategic communications plan before potentially moving ahead with drilling at Barkcamp, Wolf Run, and Sunfish Creek. All three are located in counties that are among Ohio’s top seven oil and gas producers.
The communications plan became public in early 2014 and resulted in outcry from the Sierra Club, the Ohio Environmental Council, ProgressOhio, and other groups. Days later, Kasich said he had changed his position about drilling on state public lands. A pro-industry newsletter predicted “Frackgate” would remain an issue in Ohio for a while.
A 2015 bill initially would have required drilling in some cases under state public lands but was amended in committee to exclude drilling under state parks. The House passed the bill, but it didn’t come to a vote in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Kasich did not appoint anyone to the leasing commission that would decide on permissive permits. Terms in a 2017 budget bill then sought to strip the governor of his power to name commission members, and the House voted to override Kasich’s veto. Faced with possible defeat, he began making appointments.
Gov. Mike DeWine continued to appoint individuals to the commission, which has been taking some action. Comments on a proposed standard lease form are due Jan. 13. However, final rules for the leasing procedures still have not yet been adopted.
In the meantime, the 2011 law leaves leasing issues up to individual state agencies. Some limited drilling on state public lands has taken place under current law. Some political subdivisions have also entered into leases, including the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District.
Where we are now
Oil and gas companies “currently have the right to drill under state land. But there is no deadline, there’s not a real expedited process by which they can drill,” said committee chair Sen. Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster, when the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee discussed HB 507 on Dec. 6. Some proceedings drag on for years, he added.
“It’s in current law that we can do this, and these drillers could do this,” Schaffer said. “And it’s very strictly designed to make sure that we are protecting the environment. We are protecting public lands.”
Current statutes call for consideration of whether drilling would conflict with other uses of the public land, as well as its environmental impacts and possible geological consequences. It’s unclear how those provisions would apply before the leasing commission adopts rules for reviewing proposed parcels to be drilled and accepting bids on them.
Language in the amendment appears to call for little more than a showing of parcel identification and registration, proof of insurance, and satisfaction of financial assurance requirements. The legislative synopsis for the new bill language said it “requires, rather than authorizes, each state agency to lease agency-owned or -controlled oil and gas resources for development prior to the date that rules governing leasing procedures are adopted by the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission.”
“This amendment is really a power grab by the oil and gas industry,” said Johnson. Agencies would lose their discretionary authority, and the industry would get to say where and when drilling would happen on state public lands, he said. “It’s putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”
“We strongly disagree,” said Rob Brundrett, president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, noting that terms of a lease would still have to be just and reasonable. In his view, HB 507 would just move the process along, especially where smaller parcels are part of larger areas that horizontal drilling would pass under. Such plots of land are often owned or overseen by agencies like the Ohio Department of Transportation and Department of Administrative Services, he noted.
“The amendment does not interfere or conflict with any other interest in state lands,” Brundett said. Any leases would still have to be “on just and reasonable terms,” and using the surface of state lands for development purposes would be prohibited, “unless the state agrees.”
Critics worry the new bill wording might not let agencies say no.
“The language change from ‘may’ to ‘shall’ changes the very basis of the review process from leasing being permissive to being required. It takes it from ‘You can do this’ to ‘You have to do this,’” said Neil Waggoner, who heads the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Ohio. He and others also worry about oil and gas operations in state parks and forests.
“This is all about going underground, from outside a park facility or whatsoever. … As citizens use the park, they would never know the difference because it’s not above land,” Schaffer said.
But HB 507’s wording contemplates possible agreement to surface operations, if an agency agrees. In contrast, the 2015 bill passed by the Ohio House expressly excluded any operations in or under state parks and forbid surface drilling in state forests.
“No one wants a fracking rig in a state park,” Waggoner said.
The House could agree to the amended version as early as Tuesday, Dec. 13.
Asked if DeWine would veto either the whole bill or portions dealing with natural gas, spokesperson Dan Tierney said they are reviewing the bill and have not yet taken a formal position.
The National Ignition Facility target chamber at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is where scientists shoot lasers and watch and measure what happens when those lasers collide on a fuel source. Temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures extreme enough to compress a target up to 100 times the density of lead are created in this facility.
Photo by Damien Jemison/ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
On Tuesday, the head of the Department of Energy and other federal scientific leaders announced that a fusion reaction run at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved net energy, meaning the reaction generated more energy than was put in to initiate the reaction. It is the first time humankind has achieved this landmark.
Fusion is the way that the sun makes power, but recreating a useful fusion reaction here on earth has eluded scientists for decades. Achieving net positive energy paves the way for fusion to move from a lab science to a usable energy source, although large scale commercialization of fusion could still be decades away.
Fusion is particularly attractive given the increasing urgency of climate change because if it can be commercialized at scale, it produces no carbon emissions, nor does it produce the long-lasting nuclear waste associated with nuclear fission, which is the type of nuclear energy used to make energy today.
“Monday, December 5, 2022 was an important day in science,” Jill Hruby, the National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator, said at a press conference announcing the news on Tuesday in Washington D.C. “Reaching ignition in a controlled fusion experiment is an achievement that has come after more than 60 years of global research, development, engineering and experimentation.”
Reaching ignition means the fusion experiment produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy that used to drive the reaction. Since the experiment, the team has been analyzing data to be able to make this official announcement.
“This is important. Earlier results were records, but not yet producing more energy out than was put in,” Andrew Holland, the CEO of the industry’s trade group, the Fusion Industry Association, told CNBC. “For the first time on Earth, scientists have confirmed a fusion energy experiment released more power than it takes to initiate, proving the physical basis for fusion energy. This will lead fusion to be a safe and sustainable energy source in the near future.”
In the experiment on Dec. 5, about two megajoules (a unit of energy) went into the reaction and about three megajoules came out, said Marvin Adams, Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration. “A gain of 1.5,” Adams said.
For the experiment, super high powered lasers are all directed at a very tiny fuel target at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “During experiments, 192 high energy lasers converge on a target about the size of a peppercorn heating a capsule of deuterium and tritium to over 3 million degrees Celsius and briefly simulating the conditions of a star,” Hruby said.
The main mission of the National Lab is studying nuclear power for use in national defense, and this nuclear fusion research is part of an effort established in 1996 by then President Clinton to maintain confidence in the safety of nuclear weapons stockpiles without full-scale nuclear testing.
But this discovery has massive implications for clean energy, too. In addition to the national security work, “we have taken the first tentative steps towards a clean energy source that could revolutionize the world,” Hruby said.
While this scientific breakthrough that is being celebrated at the highest levels of government, it will be many years before fusion power plants are likely to provide clean abundant energy.
“This is one igniting capsule, one time. And to realize commercial fusion energy, you have to do many things. You have to be able to produce many, many fusion ignition events per minute,” Kim Budil, the director of the Lawrence Livermore Lab, said on Tuesday.
“You have to have a robust system of drivers to enable that. So, you know, probably decades. Not six decades, I don’t think. Not five decades, which is what we used to say. I think it’s moving into the foreground and probably, with concerted effort and investment, a few decades of research on the underlying technologies could put us in a position to build a power plant.”
Omar A. Hurricane, Chief Scientist for the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program at Lawrence Livermore, explained, “What remains to be done from here is largely engineering, of increasing the laser energy efficiency and increasing the target energy gain with further target optimizations.”
Hurricane added, “This new result does indeed bring commercial fusion closer, as it demonstrates that there are no fundamental physics obstacles. It is starting to feel like we are entering the ‘Fusion Age.’”
Interest in fusion has increased dramatically in recent years as concerns about climate change and energy security have become more acute.
More than 90 nuclear power reactors currently operate in the United States, but those nuclear reactors employ nuclear fission, which is when a neutron smashes into a larger atom, causing it to split into two smaller atoms and releasing a lot of energy. Nuclear fission reactions do not release any carbon dioxide emissions and therefore are considered clean energy, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The United States got approximately 19 percent of its utility-scale electricity generation from those nuclear power plants in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and the energy from nuclear fission reactors represents half of the clean power generated in the United States, according to the Department of Energy.
However, those reactors generate long-lasting nuclear radioactive waste, and most countries, including the United States, currently have no long-term storage facilities for that waste. Efforts to build a permanent, underground geologic storage facility for nuclear waste have thus far been stymied in the United States.
Fusion happens when two atoms slam together to form a heavier atom, releasing huge amounts of energy without generating carbon dioxide emissions or long-lasting nuclear waste. But it’s proven extremely challenging to sustain a fusion reaction here on earth, and scientists have been trying for decades. In particular, it requires massive amounts of energy to generate fusion on reactions, and until this experiment, nobody had demonstrated the ability to get more energy out of the reaction than it takes to power it.
“Scientists have struggled to show that fusion can release more energy out than is put in since the 1950s,” plasma physicist Arthur Turrell told CNBC.
“During those decades, every time anyone has asked for funding for developing fusion power, the response has always been ‘first, you must show that it works in principle,’” said Turrell, who is also the author of The Star Builders. “That is, you must show that a fusion experiment can produce more energy than it uses. The researchers at Lawrence Livermore have done this for the first time ever.”
“Everyone in the laser fusion (or inertial confinement fusion) community has been focused on getting to more energy out than in on a single experiment, because that is the key to showing the proof of principle and unlocking further investment and interest,” Turrell told CNBC.
Indeed, the private fusion industry is seeing this as a win.
“Now, the privately funded fusion industry will take the next steps, turning experimental results like this into a viable source of clean, safe energy,” Holland told CNBC. “In short, this will show the world that fusion is not science fiction: it will soon be a viable source of energy. Of course there are still many steps between these experimental results and fusion power plants, but this is an important milestone that brings us closer to the day when fusion will provide the world with clean, safe, and abundant energy.”
Following a sharp and sustained rise in interest rates, U.S. stocks have taken a broad beating this year.
But 2023 may bring very different circumstances.
Below are lists of analysts’ favorite stocks among the benchmark S&P 500 SPX,
the S&P 400 Mid Cap Index MID
and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index SML
that are expected to rise the most over the next year. Those lists are followed by a summary of opinions of all 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA.
Stocks rallied on Dec. 13 when the November CPI report showed a much slower inflation pace than economists had expected. Investors were also anticipating the Federal Open Market Committee’s next monetary policy announcement on Dec. 14. The consensus among economists polled by FactSet is for the Federal Reserve to raise the federal funds rate by 0.50% to a target range of 4.50% to 4.75%.
A 0.50% increase would be a slowdown from the four previous increases of 0.75%. The rate began 2022 in a range of zero to 0.25%, where it had sat since March 2020.
A pivot for the Fed Reserve and the possibility that the federal funds rate will reach its “terminal” rate (the highest for this cycle) in the near term could set the stage for a broad rally for stocks in 2023.
Wall Street’s large-cap favorites
Among the S&P 500, 92 stocks are rated “buy” or the equivalent by at least 75% of analysts working for brokerage firms. That number itself is interesting — at the end of 2021, 93 of the S&P 500 had this distinction. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has declined 16% in 2022, with all sectors down except for energy, which has risen 53%, and the utilities sector, which his risen 1% (both excluding dividends).
Here are the 20 stocks in the S&P 500 with at least 75% “buy” or equivalent ratings that analysts expect to rise the most over the next year, based on consensus price targets:
Most of the companies on the S&P 500 list expected to soar in 2023 have seen large declines in 2022. But the company at the top of the list, EQT Corp. EQT,
is an exception. The stock has risen 69% in 2022 and is expected to add another 62% over the next 12 months. Analysts expect the company’s earnings per share to double during 2023 (in part from its expected acquisition of THQ), after nearly a four-fold EPS increase in 2022.
Shares of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN
are expected to soar 50% over the next year, following a decline of 46% so far in 2022. If the shares were to rise 50% from here to the price target of $136.02, they would still be 18% below their closing price of 166.72 at the end of 2021.
You can see the earnings estimates and more for any stock in this article by clicking on its ticker.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
Mid-cap stocks expected to rise the most
The lists of favored stocks are limited to those covered by at least five analysts polled by FactSet.
Among components of the S&P 400 Mid Cap Index, there are 84 stocks with at least 75% “buy” ratings. Here at the 20 expected to rise the most over the next year:
Among companies in the S&P Small Cap 600 Index, 91 are rated “buy” or the equivalent by at least 75% of analysts. Here are the 20 with the highest 12-month upside potential indicated by consensus price targets:
Since the 1950s, scientists around the world have sought to replicate the reaction that fuels the sun in search of a clean energy “holy grail,” a technology capable of providing nonstop electricity without planet-heating emissions or radioactive waste.
U.S. government researchers just got closer than anyone has before, briefly generating more energy from a fusion reaction than it took to set off, achieving what’s known as “ignition.”
Blasting hydrogen plasma with the world’s biggest laser had already yielded a “Wright brothers moment” in August 2021 when, for a brief 100 trillionths of a second, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California registered a historic burst of fusion energy. But the 1.3 megajoules generated was only about 70% of the energy fired from the laser.
“Last week for the first time they designed the experiment so the fusion fuel stayed hot enough, dense enough and round enough for long enough that it ignited and it produced more energies than the lasers had deposited,” Marvin Adams, the National Nuclear Safety Administration’s deputy administrator for defense programs, said Tuesday morning at a White House conference announcing the discovery. “About 2 megajoules in, about 3 megajoules out.”
It’s a major new milestone — the first proof that humanity can harness the cosmic energy released when two lighter atoms fuse into one heavier element, less than a century after the awesome power of splitting atoms debuted as mushroom clouds.
“We are in a moment of history, really,” said Arthur Turrell, a plasma physicist whose book “The Star Builders” tracks the growing momentum in nuclear fusion. “No doubt it’s one of the greatest technological challenges humanity has ever undertaken, but here we are. They’ve done it. They’ve proven it can happen.”
Commercial fusion power plants are still decades away, at least. But the Biden administration’s announcement on Tuesday could shake up funding for fusion research.
After months of delays, the EU and NATO are expected to soon formally issue a joint call for Russia to stop its war and leave Ukraine, and to pledge full support to Kyiv.
The declaration, a draft of which was partially reviewed by POLITICO, has been in the works for more than a year but held up over tensions between Turkey and Cyprus, diplomats said. Now, a final version appears near, and two diplomats said it is expected to be presented soon, possibly on Monday or Tuesday — or early in 2023 if end-of-year schedules get in the way.
While the text is largely unremarkable, making it official would represent a considerable diplomatic achievement given the months it took to get there. Initially, the document was expected to get a sign-off at the NATO summit in Madrid last June.
Even with the document being near ready for release, some remain skeptical, saying they’ll only believe it when they see the public ceremony.
Frustration has been mounting over the document’s delays.
In September, after meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen wrote on Twitter that “the time has come to agree a new Joint Declaration to take our partnership forward.” And, at the start of the month, the European Parliament complained that “despite effective cooperation on the ground,” the “foot-dragging is particularly noticeable regarding the long-awaited third joint declaration.”
The text has been negotiated mainly between the office of the European Council president, Charles Michel, the Commission and NATO.
In the near-final draft, the EU and NATO call for Russia “to immediately stop this war and withdraw from Ukraine,” and they reiterate their “unwavering and continued support for its independence.”
They also agreed “to fully support Ukraine’s inherent right to self-defence and to choose its own destiny.” And they say that “Russia’s brutal war” has “exacerbated a food and energy crisis affecting billions of people around the word.”
The document includes another section addressing China, which Germany pushed to keep separate from the Russian language, according to one of the diplomats.
“We live in an era of growing strategic competition,” the document says in the paragraph on China. “China’s growing assertiveness and policies present challenges that we need to address.”
A marine diesel truck pump at Ensenada, in the northwestern state of Baja California, property of Pemex and a private partner. Credit: Pemex
by Emilio Godoy (veracruz, mexico)
Inter Press Service
VERACRUZ, Mexico, Dec 12 (IPS) – By 2025, the state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) should comply with Mexican regulations to produce clean fuels, including marine ones, but there’s an obstacle: Mexico lacks a plan for the development of cleaner marine fuels.
Clean gasoline is expected to be processed in the Dos Bocas refinery, located in the southeastern state of Tabasco, which would begin operations in 2023, with a capacity to process 170,000 barrels of gasoline and 120,000 barrels of ultra-low sulfur diesel daily, to prop up domestic production and thus cushion dependence on imports, especially from the United States.
Emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the burning of high-sulfur fuels, derived as a residue from crude oil distillation, lead to sulfurous particles in the air, which can trigger asthma and worsen heart and lung diseases, as well as threaten marine and land ecosystems, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
SO2 lasts only a few days in the atmosphere, but when dissolved in water it generates acids that lend it its dangerous nature to human health.
Meanwhile, the emissions of nitrous dioxide (NOx), derived also from hydrocarbon consumption, stream into smog, when mixed with ground-level ozone. NOx remains 114 years in the atmosphere, according to several scientific studies.
Finally, CO2 pollution contributes to the climate crisis. Global greenhouse gas emissions from shipping grew from 977 million tons of CO2 in 2012 to 1 076 million in 2018 – an expansion of 9,6% – and could increase 90%-130% by 2050, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Its total level went from 2,76% to 2,89% in that period. Between 2021 to 2030, the sector needs a 15% curtailment to meet the climate goals.
In water, hydrocarbons block the entry of light and limit the photosynthesis of algae and other plants, and in fauna they can cause poisoning, alterations of reproductive cycles and intoxication, EPA adds.
But Mexico lacks measurements of atmospheric and marine pollution. Nor does it have roadmaps for its reduction or concrete plans to produce marine fuels with reduced sulfur content, an element harmful to human health and the environment.
The production of green fuels is vital for maritime transport, whose main consumer in Mexico is the national fleet, and Pemex would play a prominet role in it.
The fact is that the national oil company “has no capacity to refine clean fuels, nor does it intend to do so,” said Rodolfo Navarro, director of the non-governmental company Comunicar para Conservar, established in the area of Cozumel, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo and one of the largest cruise ships receiver in the world.
The report, prepared by the non-governmental organization Getting to Zero Coalition and the global platform Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030, estimated international arrivals to Mexico released into the atmosphere 10,35 million tons of CO2, 14 947 of SO2, 25 697 of NOx and 4 300 tons of particulate matter.
The national shipping industry was responsible for the emission of 1,67 million tons of CO2, 20 370 of SO2, 33 870 of NOx and 5 710 of particulate matter in 2018.
As of 2020, IMO has applied regulations limiting the sulfur content used on cargo ships to 0,5%, from 3,5%. Thus, the agency will need to reduce pollution by 77%, equivalent to 8,5 million tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2).
A marine diesel truck pump at Ensenada, in the northwestern state of Baja California, property of Pemex and a private partner. Credit: Pemex
A needed national contribution
From December 2018, 15 parts per million (ppm) ultra-low sulfur diesel has been sold in Mexico, while all gasoline must have a content of 30-80 ppm.
The regulation on oil quality also stipulated a timeline for the reduction of sulfur in gasoline and diesel in a range of 15-30 ppm. The lower that amount, the less sulfur and the better for the vehicle’s engines, because they function more efficiently. But despite the progress, Pemex never fully complied with that standard. Meanwhile, the limit for agricultural and marine diesel stands at 500 ppm, meaning it is much more laden with sulfur.
Since 2018, Pemex’s domestic sales of marine diesel have fallen. That year it distributed 12,150 barrels per day. In 2019 sales fell to 10,670, the following year, to 7,260; in 2021, to 6,700, and last May they jumped to 9,218 barrels, according to figures from the state company.
Marine diesel has more energy density because a motorboat needs more power than a land vehicle.
A similar phenomenon has occurred with intermediate 15 (IFO), a residual fuel produced from the distillation of crude oil – and diesel – a lighter fuel –, and whose sales totaled 1,850 barrels per day in 2018, 1,290 in 2019, 1,100 in 2020, 940 in 2021 and 840 as of last May.
This data indicates, on one hand, that domestic ships tend to consume more marine diesel than IFO 15, which is more polluting. On the other hand, it would be easier to replace this with green fuels.
The Mexican fleet comprises 2 697 vessels, including fishing vessels, tankers, freighters, and containers. By 2030, these would emit 6 963 tons of NOx, docked ships would emit 528 235 tons and cargo handling would be responsible for 3 752 tons. Regarding SO2, these indicators would add up to 861, 65 294 and 276 tons, respectively. Maritime transport would release 277 tons of particulate matter and docked ships, 20 970, according to projections by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation.
Big ship cruisers docked in Cozumel, one of the biggest ports of the world that receive this type of recreational ships, in southeast Mexico. Credit: Government of Quintana Roo
Insufficient progress
Mexico should introduce other policies beyond clean diesel refining, according to Alison Shaw, policy lead at the University College of London’s Energy Institute Shipping Group.
“While clean diesel may offer a bridging fuel for some sectors, perhaps for public transport or trucking, the deep-sea commercial shipping industry still widely relies on heavy fuel oil and this sector’s transition is about moving from fossil fuels entirely,” she wrote in an email to IPS.
The specialist highlighted the production of clean diesel doesn’t cut GHG in the same level as scalable zero-emissions fuels, such as hydrogen or ammonia, and it would just be a small, temporary improvement. “It’s not the solution for the maritime industry,” she emphasized.
Some reports stress the Mexican potential to transition to a sustainable maritime shipping industry.
The Getting to Zero Coalition’s and Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030’s study underlined that Mexico could become a central player in supplying global demand for green fuel and attract investment of between 7-9 billion dollars by 2030.
The paper underscores that this Latin American country has “huge renewable energy potential” and direct access to busy maritime routes.
The ports of Manzanillo, Mexico’s largest; Cozumel, specialized in cruise ships; and Coatzacoalcos, focused on the export and import of oil and gas and their derivatives, could show how different types of facilities in Mexico could capitalize on a transition to pollution elimination. This transition would diversify current port activities and create a hub for the production and export of zero-carbon fuels.
Small ferries transport passengers to spend the day in Cozumel island, the biggest in Mexico’s Caribbean, off the touristic Mayan Riviera, in the state of Quintana Roo, in the southeastern Yucatan Peninsula. Credit: Emilio Godoy/ IPS
According to Eliana Barleta, independent expert in shipping and ports, the substitution options are mainly low-sulfur fuel, liquified gas – both fossil fuels – or scrubbers’ (filters) installation on ships. These are control devices that can be used to remove some gasses from industrial exhaust streams.
“The port location, the number and type of ships that arrive to it, are all important aspects to understand the fuel choice and the infrastructure solutions. Some maritime fuel applications will be more appropriate for the quick adoption of zero-emissions new fuels. The largest ships, like bulk carriers that travel between a small number of big ports, are very suitable for early adoption, because it’s much likely the biggest ports can offer fuel supply agreements, and the same largest ships’ regular demand will support the investment,” she said to IPS.
But the ships that visit more destinations or smaller ports could have problems finding installations that could supply the new fuels, so it may take longer for them to adopt zero-carbon alternatives.
The international maritime sector considers hydrogen, its byproduct methanol and ammonia to be viable as fuels. Due to its safety and energetic potential, methanol seems to take the lead in comparison with the other two alternatives, according to two recent studies.
The problem lies in the Secretary of Energy’s refusal to promote clean fuels, said one anonymous source from the maritime sector to IPS.
The scenarios collide with the fossil fuel-supporting policies that the president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has applied since December 2018, when he took office, and that focus on enhancing Pemex’s operations, as the transition to cleaner energy and fuels is paused.
Pemex and the Secretary of Energy didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Alison Shaw, the British expert, foresaw one possible effect of these policies would be Mexico’s late entrance to that market.
“Mexico’s energy policies risk locking the country into a soon-to-be outdated energy infrastructure and forgoing the sustainable development advantages associated with engaging in renewable energy and green fuel production,” she critiqued.
The scholar foresaw that maritime transportation will be an important market for new green fuels and will source their supply wherever it is available, which would mean “if Mexico doesn’t produce and provide green fuels, it might enter a crowded market down the line.”
For Barleta, the shipping expert, the production of green fuels seems to be a regional opportunity. “All nations should have access to opportunities related to the decarbonization of global maritime transportation. Many countries are well situated to become competitive suppliers of zero-carbon fuels, like green ammonia and hydrogen,” she suggested.
But there are important issues to resolve. “Which are the most appropriate engines and fuels? Which is the fuel with the lowest impact (as fuels may have reduced carbon, but release other pollutants)? Which trade routes may favor decarbonization, without affecting normal commercial performance?”, she questioned.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest in the Bahamas on Monday marks the beginning of a new chapter in the FTX saga, one that will pit the former crypto billionaire against the Southern District of New York.
The indictment is expected to remain sealed until Tuesday morning. U.S. prosecutors haven’t commented, and neither the Attorney General of the Bahamas nor the Royal Bahamas Police Force would confirm the nature of the charges against Bankman-Fried.
The New York Times reported that the charges against Bankman-Fried included conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, as well as standalone charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
The SEC has initiated a separate set of charges against Bankman-Fried, relating to “violations of our securities laws, which will be filed publicly tomorrow in the Southern District of New York,” enforcement director Gurbir Grewal said in a statement on Monday.
A spokesperson for the SEC declined further comment.
The charges could land Bankman-Fried in prison for decades, legal experts told CNBC. But before he ever serves time, U.S. prosecutors have to secure an extradition from the Bahamas back to New York.
An effort to extradite
“It is inconceivable to me that the Justice Department would have charged this case unless they were confident that they could extradite him,” Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, told CNBC.
Mariotti anticipates an extradition will take weeks to complete.
“The statement by the Bahamian government suggests that they’re going to cooperate,” Mariotti said.
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The U.S. and the Bahamas have had an extradition treaty in place since 1931, with the most recent iteration codified in 1990. Because Bankman-Fried hasn’t been convicted in the Bahamas yet, U.S. prosecutors had to secure an arrest warrant and provide sufficient evidence to the Bahamians that he had committed a crime.
Extradition is the first step in a process that could take years to finish. Given the magnitude of Bankman-Fried’s alleged crimes, prosecutors and regulators will be pursuing concurrent cases around the world.
A trial in the U.S. “may not occur for years,” Mariotti said.
“The more that they charge, the bigger that the case is, the more time they’re going to need to get in motion,” he said. “I would say late 2023 is the earliest a trial would occur.”
Prosecutors could argue that FTX breached its fiduciary duty by allegedly using customer funds to artificially stabilize the price of the company’s self-issued FTT coin, Mariotti said.
Intent is also a factor in fraud cases, and Bankman-Fried insists he didn’t know about potentially fraudulent activity. He told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times DealBook conference that he “didn’t knowingly commingle funds.”
“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud,” Bankman-Fried said.
In prepared testimony for the House Financial Services committee, new FTX CEO John Ray confirmed that commingling of funds had occurred between FTX and Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund.
Other legal trouble
Beyond the criminal charges set to be unveiled Tuesday morning, Bankman-Fried is also facing civil action, which could be brought by the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and state banking and securities regulators, said Richard Levin, who chairs the fintech and regulation practice at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough.
The CFTC and lawmakers have begun their probes into FTX and Bankman-Fried, who told Sorkin he was down to his last $100,000.
Shortly after Bankman-Fried’s arrest, the SEC appeared to confirm that the agency would pursue a separate set of charges from the criminal indictment.
Lawmakers also expressed their satisfaction at Bankman-Fried’s arrest. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, applauded both the Justice Department and Bahamian law enforcement “for holding Sam Bankman-Fried accountable.”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, echoed that sentiment, but expressed disappointment that Bankman-Fried was arrested before his House testimony, which was scheduled for Tuesday.
“I am surprised to hear that Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas at the direction of the United States Attorney,” Waters said in a statement.
“[The] American public deserves to hear directly from Mr. Bankman-Fried about the actions that’ve harmed over one million people,” Waters continued.
Bankman-Fried had also been invited to appear before the Senate prior to his arrest. That hearing will occur on Wednesday.
It’s unclear whether the SEC or the CFTC will take the lead in securing civil damages.
“The question of who would be taking the lead there, whether it be the SEC or CFTC, depends on whether or not there were securities involved,” Mariotti told CNBC.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who met with Bankman-Fried and FTX executives earlier this year, has said publicly that “many crypto tokens are securities,” which would make his agency the primary regulator.
But many exchanges, including FTX, have crypto derivatives platforms that sell financial products like futures and options, which fall under the CFTC’s jurisdiction.
“For selling unregistered securities without a registration or an exemption, you could be looking at the Securities Exchange Commission suing for disgorgement — monetary penalties,” said Levin, who’s represented clients before both agencies.
Investors who have lost their savings aren’t waiting. Class-action suits have already been filed against FTX endorsers, like comedian Larry David and football superstar Tom Brady. One suit excoriated the celebrities for allegedly failing to do their “due diligence prior to marketing [FTX] to the public.”
FTX’s industry peers are also filing suit against Bankman-Fried. Failed lender BlockFi sued Bankman-Fried in November, seeking unnamed collateral that the FTX founder provided for the crypto lending firm.
FTX and Bankman-Fried had previously rescued BlockFi from insolvency in June, but when FTX failed, BlockFi was left with a similar liquidity problem and filed for bankruptcy protection in New Jersey.
Bankman-Fried has also been sued in Florida and California federal courts. He faces class-action suits in both states over “one of the great frauds in history,” a California court filing said.
The largest securities class-action settlement was for $7.2 billion in the Enron accounting fraud case, according to Stanford research. The possibility of a multibillion-dollar settlement would come on top of civil and criminal fines that Bankman-Fried faces.
A life behind bars
If the DOJ were able to secure a conviction, a judge would look to several factors to determine how long to sentence him.
Based on the size of the losses, if Bankman-Fried is convicted on any of the fraud charges, he could be behind bars for years — potentially for the rest of his life, said Braden Perry, a partner at Kennyhertz Perry who advises clients on anti-money laundering, compliance and enforcement issues.
But the length of any potential sentence is hard to predict, said Perry, who was previously a senior trial lawyer for the CFTC, FTX’s only official U.S. regulator.
Federal sentencing guidelines follow a numeric system to determine the maximum and minimum allowable sentence, but the system can be esoteric. The scale, or “offense level,” starts at one, and maxes out at 43.
A wire fraud conviction rates as a seven on the scale, with a minimum sentence ranging from zero to six months.
But mitigating factors and enhancements can alter that rating, Perry told CNBC.
“The dollar value of loss plays a significant role. Under the guidelines, any loss above $550 million adds 30 points to the base level offense,” Perry said. FTX customers have lost billions of dollars.
“Having 25 or more victims adds 6 points, [and] use of certain regulated markets adds 4,” Perry said.
That means Bankman-Fried could be facing life in federal prison, without the possibility of supervised release, if he’s convicted on just one of the offenses that prosecutors will reportedly pursue.
If convicted, his sentence could be reduced by mitigating factors.
“In practice, many white-collar defendants are sentenced to lesser sentences than what the guidelines dictate,” Perry said. Even in large fraud cases, that 30-point enhancement previously mentioned can be considered punitive.
By way of comparison, Stefan Qin, the Australian founder of a $90 million cryptocurrency hedge fund, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud.
The U.S. Department of Energy is expected on Tuesday morning to announce a breakthrough in ongoing research for nuclear fusion, long heralded for its potential as a source of zero-emissions and essentially, limitless, energy.
The announcement is scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern time.
Nuclear fusion, if it can be produced at scale, has long been considered the Holy Grail in the push for clean energy and slowing the global warming that is intensifying natural disasters, acidifying oceans and bringing extreme heat and drought. The U.S. and much of the rest of the developed world have been promoting a combination of solar, wind ICLN, +0.92%,
hydrogren and nuclear energy to replace the coal, oil CL00, +1.12%
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that send atmosphere-warming emissions into the air.
Many nations, including the U.S., have said their economies must cut emissions by half as soon as 2030 and hit net-zero emissions by 2050.
On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that federally-funded scientists with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory produced more energy than was consumed in a fusion reaction for the first time. Other major news outlets confirmed that reporting, although the lab has said it will wait until Tuesday to discuss the project.
“The recent experiment is a first-of-its-kind feat that could lead to an effective process for producing a zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels and [traditional] nuclear energy,” said Frank Maisano, senior principal focused on energy with the Policy Resolution Group in Washington.
Nuclear fusion is the process of fusing two or more atoms into one larger one, a process that unleashes potentially usable energy as heat, in much the same way the sun heats the Earth. Nuclear power used today is created by a different process, called fission, which relies on splitting atoms and harnessing that energy, while also producing radioactive waste.
Currently, traditional nuclear plants using fission produce about 10% of the world’s electricity, but their proponents have also pushed their expansion as a key to a diverse portfolio of alternative energy.
Daniel Kammen, a professor of energy and society at the University of California at Berkeley, told the Associated Press that nuclear fusion offers the possibility of “basically unlimited” fuel, but only when the technology can be made commercially viable. The basic elements are easily accessible; in fact, they’re available in seawater.
The Livermore lab isn’t the only effort toward a fusion breakthrough, which scientists have worked on for decades.
In Europe earlier this year, a large, doughnut-shaped machine known as a tokamak, developed by scientists working in the English village of Culham, near Oxford, generated a record-breaking 59 megajoules of sustained nuclear fusion energy over five seconds during trials, the scientists revealed. That more than doubled the previous record for generating and sustaining fusion.
While scientists have generated fusion energy before it is sustaining the power that has been difficult to achieve. A magnetic field is required to contain the high temperatures created by the fusion process — some 150 million degrees Celsius, 10 times hotter than the center of the sun.
The Livermore lab uses a different technique than the tokamak, with researchers firing a 192-beam laser at a small capsule filled with deuterium-tritium fuel. The lab reported that an August 2021 test produced 1.35 megajoules of fusion energy — about 70% of the energy fired at the target. The lab said several subsequent experiments showed declining results, but researchers believed they had identified ways to improve the quality of the fuel capsule and the lasers’ symmetry.
In Orange County, California, another contender in the fusion race, TAE Technologies, is on track to develop the first commercial prototype power plant for clean fusion energy by 2030, its CEO Michl Binderbauer told MarketWatch earlier this year. Binderbauer had just attended the first-ever White House Fusion Summit.
At that event, administration officials announced what they called a “bold decadal vision” to accelerate the development of commercial fusion energy.
“There’s a fallacy in thinking that solar and wind can solve everything,” said Binderbauer. “Absolutely, they’re wonderful sources of power where it fits. But there are also limitations. There’s no world that can run on 100% renewables.”
Nuclear industry analysts remind that it will take sustaining and repeating the process, and at scale, for the development to change traditional energy markets anytime soon.
“This doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal, but I still doubt how much this impacts the efforts to bring fusion closer to commercial reality. My sense is fusion is at least a decade or more away from any commercialization,” said Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, LLC, which tracks the uranium and nuclear markets, in an email to MarketWatch.
As a bullet train speeds by in the background, a liquid hydrogen tank towers over solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells at Panasonic’s Kusatsu plant in Japan. Combined with a Tesla Megapack storage battery, the hydrogen and solar can deliver enough electricity to power the site’s Ene-Farm fuel cell factory.
Tim Hornyak
As bullet trains whiz by at 285 kilometers per hour, Panasonic’s Norihiko Kawamura looks over Japan’s tallest hydrogen storage tank. The 14-meter structure looms over the Tokaido Shinkansen Line tracks outside the ancient capital of Kyoto, as well as a large array of solar panels, hydrogen fuel cells and Tesla Megapack storage batteries. The power sources can generate enough juice to run part of the manufacturing site using renewable energy only.
“This may be the biggest hydrogen consumption site in Japan,” says Kawamura, a manager at the appliance maker’s Smart Energy System Business Division. “We estimate using 120 tons of hydrogen a year. As Japan produces and imports more and more hydrogen in the future, this will be a very suitable kind of plant.”
Sandwiched between a high-speed railway and highway, Panasonic’s factory in Kusastsu, Shiga Prefecture, is a sprawling 52 hectare site. It was originally built in 1969 to manufacture goods including refrigerators, one of the “three treasures” of household appliances, along with TVs and washing machines, that Japanese coveted as the country rebuilt after the devastation of World War II.
Today, one corner of the plant is the H2 Kibou Field, a demonstration sustainable power facility that started operations in April. It consists of a 78,000-liter hydrogen fuel tank, a 495 kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell array made up of 99 5kW fuel cells, 570kW from 1,820 photovoltaic solar panels arranged in an inverted “V” shape to catch the most sunlight, and 1.1 megawatts of lithium-ion battery storage.
On one side of the H2 Kibou Field, a large display indicates the amount of power being produced in real time from fuel cells and solar panels: 259kW. About 80% of the power generated comes from fuel cells, with solar accounting for the rest. Panasonic says the facility produces enough power to meet the needs of the site’s fuel cell factory — it has peak power of about 680kW and annual usage of some 2.7 gigawatts. Panasonic thinks it can be a template for the next generation of new, sustainable manufacturing.
“This is the first manufacturing site of its kind using 100% renewable energy,” says Hiroshi Kinoshita of Panasonic’s Smart Energy System Business Division. “We want to expand this solution towards the creation of a decarbonized society.”
The 495kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell array is made up of 99 5KW fuel cells. Panasonic says it’s the world’s first site of its kind to use hydrogen fuel cells toward creating a manufacturing plant running on 100% renewable energy.
Tim Hornyak
An artificial intelligence-equipped Energy Management System (EMS) automatically controls on-site power generation, switching between solar and hydrogen, to minimize the amount of electricity purchased from the local grid operator. For example, if it’s a sunny summer day and the fuel cell factory needs 600kW, the EMS might prioritize the solar panels, deciding on a mixture of 300kW solar, 200 kW hydrogen fuel cells, and 100kW storage batteries. On a cloudy day, however, it might minimize the solar component, and boost the hydrogen and storage batteries, which are recharged at night by the fuel cells.
“The most important thing to make manufacturing greener is an integrated energy system including renewable energy such as solar and wind, hydrogen, batteries and so on,” says Takamichi Ochi, a senior manager for climate change and energy at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting. “To do that, the Panasonic example is close to an ideal energy system.”
With grey hydrogen, not totally green yet
The H2 Kibou Field is not totally green. It depends on so-called grey hydrogen, which is generated from natural gas in a process that can release a lot of carbon dioxide. Tankers haul 20,000 liters of hydrogen, chilled in liquid form to minus 250 Celsius, from Osaka to Kusatsu, a distance of some 80 km, about once a week. Japan has relied on countries like Australia, which has greater supplies of renewable energy, for hydrogen production. But local supplier Iwatani Corporation, which partnered with Chevron earlier this year to build 30 hydrogen fueling sites in California by 2026, has opened a technology center near Osaka that is focused on producing green hydrogen, which is created without the use of fossil fuels.
Another issue that is slowing adoption is cost. Even though electricity is relatively expensive in Japan, it currently costs much more to power a plant with hydrogen than using power from the grid, but the company expects Japanese government and industry efforts to improve supply and distribution will make the element significantly cheaper.
“Our hope is that hydrogen cost will go down, so we can achieve something like 20 yen per cubic meter of hydrogen, and then we will be able to achieve cost parity with the electrical grid,” Kawamura said.
Panasonic is also anticipating that Japan’s push to become carbon-neutral by 2050 will boost demand for new energy products. Its fuel cell factory at Kusatsu has churned out over 200,000 Ene-Farm natural gas fuel cell for home use. Commercialized in 2009, the cells extract hydrogen from natural gas, generate power by reacting it with oxygen, heat and store hot water, and deliver up to 500 watts of emergency power for eight days in a disaster. Last year, it began selling a pure hydrogen version targeted at commercial users. It wants to sell the fuel cells in the U.S. and Europe because governments there have more aggressive hydrogen cost-cutting measures than Japan. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a so-called Hydrogen Shot program that aims to slash the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 per 1 kilogram over 10 years.
Panasonic doesn’t plan to increase the scale of its H2 Kibou Field for the time being, wanting to see other companies and factories adopt similar energy systems.
It won’t necessarily make economic sense today, Kawamura says, “but we want to start something like this so it will be ready when the cost of hydrogen falls. Our message is: if we want to have 100% renewable energy in 2030, then we must start with something like this now, not in 2030.”
A ruptured pipe dumped enough oil this week into a northeastern Kansas creek to nearly fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, becoming the largest onshore crude pipeline spill in nine years and surpassing all the previous ones on the same pipeline system combined, according to federal data.
The Keystone pipeline spill in a creek running through rural pastureland in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City, also was the biggest in the system’s history, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data. The operator, Canada-based TC Energy, said the pipeline that runs from Canada to Oklahoma lost about 14,000 barrels, or 588,000 gallons.
The spill raised questions for environmentalists and safety advocates about whether TC Energy should keep a federal government permit that has allowed the pressure inside parts of its Keystone system — including the stretch through Kansas — to exceed the typical maximum permitted levels. With Congress facing a potential debate on reauthorizing regulatory programs, the chair of a House subcommittee on pipeline safety took note of the spill Friday.
A U.S. Government Accountability Office report last year said there had been 22 previous spills along the Keystone system since it began operating in 2010, most of them on TC Energy property and fewer than 20 barrels. The total from those 22 events was a little less than 12,000 barrels, the report said.
“I’m watching this situation closely to learn more about this latest oil leak and inform ways to prevent future releases and protect public safety and the environment,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., of New Jersey, tweeted.
TC Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the spill has been contained. The EPA said the company built an earthen dam across the creek about 4 miles downstream from the pipeline rupture to prevent the oil from moving into larger waterways.
Randy Hubbard, the county’s emergency management director, said the oil traveled only about a quarter mile and there didn’t appear to be any wildlife deaths.
The company said it is doing around-the-clock air-quality checks and other environmental monitoring. It also was using multiple trucks that amount to giant wet vacuums to suck up the oil.
Past Keystone spills have led to outages that lasted about two weeks, and the company said it still is evaluating when it can reopen the system.
The EPA said no drinking water wells were affected and oil-removal efforts will continue into next week. No one was evacuated, but the Kansas Department of Health and Environment warned people not to go into the creek or allow animals to wade in.
“At the time of the incident, the pipeline was operating within its design and regulatory approval requirements,” the company said in a statement.
The nearly 2,700-mile (4345-kilometer) Keystone pipeline carries thick, Canadian tar-sands oil to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, with about 600,000 barrels moving per day from Canada to Cushing, Oklahoma. Concerns about spills fouling water helped spur opposition to a new, 1,200 mile (1,900 kilometers) Keystone XL pipeline, and the company pulled the plug last year after President Joe Biden canceled a permit for it.
Environmentalists said the heavier tar sands oil is not only more toxic than lighter crude but can sink in water instead of floating on top. Bill Caram, executive director of the advocacy Pipeline Safety Trust, said cleanup even sometimes can include scrubbing individual rocks in a creek bed.
“This is going to be months, maybe even years before we get the full handle on this disaster and know the extent of the damage and get it all cleaned up,” said Zack Pistora, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club at the Kansas Statehouse.
Pipelines often are considered safer than shipping oil by railcar or truck, but large spills can create significant environmental damage. The American Petroleum Institute said Friday that companies have robust monitoring to detect leaks, cracks, corrosion and other problems, not only through control centers but with employees who walk alongside pipelines.
Still, in September 2013, a Tesoro Corp. pipeline in North Dakota ruptured and spilled 20,600 barrels, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.
A more expensive spill happened in July 2010, when an Enbridge Inc. pipeline in Michigan ruptured and spilled more than 20,000 barrels into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. Hundreds of homes and businesses were evacuated.
The Keystone pipeline’s previous largest spill came in 2017, when more than 6,500 barrels spilled near Amherst, South Dakota, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released last year. The second largest, 4,515 barrels, was in 2019 near Edinburg, North Dakota.
The Petroleum Institute said pipelines go through tests before opening using pressures that exceed the company’s planned levels and are designed to account for what they’ll carry and changes in the ground they cover. An arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation oversees pipeline safety and permitted TC Energy to have greater pressures on the Keystone system because the company used pipe made from better steel.
But Caram said: “When we see multiple failures like this of such large size and a relatively short amount of time after that pressure has increased, I think it’s time to question that.”
In its report last year to Congress, the GAO said Keystone’s accident history was similar to other oil pipelines, but spills have gotten larger in recent years. Investigations ordered by regulators found that the four worst spills were caused by flaws in design or pipe manufacturing during construction.
TC Energy’s permit included more than 50 special conditions, mostly for its design, construction and operation, the GAO report said. The company said in response to the 2021 report that it took “decisive action” in recent years to improve safety, including developing new technology for detecting cracks and an independent review of its pipeline integrity program.
The company said Friday that it would conduct a full investigation into the causes of the spill.
The spill caused a brief surge in crude prices Thursday. Benchmark U.S. oil was up more modestly — about 1% — on Friday morning as fears of a supply disruption were overshadowed by bigger concerns about an economic downturn in the U.S. and other major countries that would reduce demand for oil.
The pipeline runs through Chris and Bill Pannbacker’s family farm. Bill Pannbacker, a farmer and stockman, said the company told him that the issues with the pipeline there probably will not be resolved until after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
The hill where the breach happened was a landmark to locals and used to be a popular destination for hayrides, Pannbacker said.
Heat pumps are becoming more popular for residential housing with energy prices increasing and the need to reduce use of fossil fuel heating systems.
Andrew Aitchison | In Pictures | Getty Images
Thinking about a home heat pump? New and expanded government incentives, coupled with sharply rising utility costs, make it more compelling.
Especially when used in connection with clean electricity sources like rooftop or community solar, a heat pump — a single electric appliance that can replace a homeowner’s traditional air conditioner and furnace system — can warm and cool a home with less planetary harm.
These investments are becoming more appealing to consumers, too, given inflation’s heavy hand. A whopping 87% of U.S. homeowners surveyed said they experienced higher prices in at least one household service or utility category over the summer, according to SaveOnEnergy.com. There’s another possible bonus: Incentives being offered through the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
“These incentives are not only saving you money now and in the long run on your utility bills, but they are putting our economy on track to reduce consumption of fossil fuels that contribute to climate change,” said Miranda Leppla, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. “It’s a win-win.”
The use of heat pumps will become more common as governments legislate their adoption. Washington State recently mandated that new homes and apartments be constructed with heat pumps. In July, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a goal of 3 million climate-ready and climate-friendly homes by 2030 and 7 million by 2035, supplemented by 6 million heat pumps by 2030.
Here are four important things to know about upgrading your home to a heat pump system.
Heat pump cost, savings and efficiency considerations
Heat pumps are appropriate for all climates and are three to five times more energy efficient than traditional heating systems, according to Rewiring America, a nonprofit focused on electrifying homes, businesses and communities.
Rather than generating heat, these devices transfer heat from the cool outdoors into the warm indoors and vice versa during warm weather. Heat pumps rely on electricity instead of natural gas or propane, both of which have a higher carbon emission than renewable electricity such as wind or solar, said Jay S. Golden, director of the Dynamic Sustainability Lab at Syracuse University.
With installation, heat pumps can range from around $8,000 to $35,000, depending on factors such as the size of the home and heat pump type, according to Rewiring America, but it estimates the savings could amount to hundreds of dollars per year for an average household. What’s more, it’s a long-term play, since heat pumps that most people will consider installing have an average lifespan of 10 to 15 years, according to Rewiring America.
Electricity costs also tend to be more stable, insulating consumers against gas price volatility, said Joshua Skov, a business and government consultant on sustainability strategy who also serves as an industry mentor and instructor at the University of Oregon.
“While there’s an upfront cost, millions of homeowners would save money with a heat pump over the life of the device,” he said. “You’ll save even more with the federal government covering a chunk of the upfront cost.”
Inflation Reduction Act incentives
The Inflation Reduction Act — an expansive climate-protection effort by the federal government — includes multiple incentives to lower the cost of energy-saving property improvements. These incentives significantly exceed what’s available to homeowners today, said Jono Anzalone, a lecturer at the University of Southern Maine and the executive director of The Climate Initiative, which empowers students to tackle climate change.
For low-income households, the Inflation Reduction Act covers 100% of the cost of a heat pump, up to $8,000. For moderate-income households, it covers 50% of your heat pump costs, up to the same dollar limit. Homeowners can use a calculator — such as the one available from Rewiring America — to determine their eligibility.
If you’re considering multiple green home improvements, keep in mind that the law’s overall threshold for “qualified electrification projects” is up to $14,000 per household.
Federal tax credits for homeowners
For those who exceed the income threshold for a rebate, there’s the option, starting Jan. 1, to take advantage of the nonbusiness energy property credit, commonly referred to as 25C, said Peter Downing, a principal with Marcum LLP who leads the accounting firm’s tax credits and incentives group.
Homeowners can receive a 30% tax credit for home energy efficiency projects such as heat pumps. In a given year, they can get a credit of up to $2,000 for installing certain equipment such as a heat pump. This credit will expire after 2032, according to the Congressional Research Service.
There can be another tax credit to homeowners who purchase a geothermal heat pump, which is a more expensive, but longer-lasting option on average. Homeowners can receive an uncapped 30% tax credit for a geothermal heating installation, according to Rewiring America, which estimates an average geothermal installation costs about $24,000 and lasts twenty to fifty years. That means the average tax credit for this type of pump will be around $7,200, Rewiring America said.
The ventilation system of a geothermal heat pump located in front of a residential building.
Rulemaking is still underway for the Inflation Reduction Act. But it is possible eligible consumers will be allowed to receive both a rebate and a credit, Downing said. But the math is not likely to be as straightforward, based on previous IRS guidance on energy rebates backed by the federal government. Say a consumer is entitled to a 50% rebate for a heat pump that costs $6,000. For purposes of the tax credit, the remaining $3,000 could be eligible for a 30% tax credit, resulting in a possible credit of $900, he said.
State and local financial support
States, municipalities and local utility companies may provide rebates for certain efficient appliances, including heat pumps. “Check with all of them because there are so many different levels of programs, you really need to hunt around,” said Jon Huntley, a senior economist at the Penn Wharton Budget Model who co-authored an analysis of the Inflation Reduction Act’s potential impact on the economy.
Also be sure to check back frequently to see what new state, local and utility-based incentives may be available because programs are often updated, Golden said. Reputable local contractors should also know about locally available rebates, he said.
Many installers have aggressive financing packages to make heat pump installation more feasible, Anzalone said.
Chinese President, Xi Jinping (L) is welcomed by Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (R) at the Palace of Yamamah in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 8, 2022.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
China and Saudi Arabia stressed the importance of global oil market stability and Riyadh’s role in achieving this balance, following a three-day Saudi visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“The People’s Republic of China welcomed the Kingdom’s role as a supporter of the balance and stability in the world oil markets, and as reliable major exporter of crude oil to China,” said a joint statement published by Riyadh’s state-owned Saudi Press Agency.
China is the world’s largest crude oil importer, while Saudi Arabia is the greatest exporter of such resources and chairs the influential OPEC+ producers’ alliance.
Xi met both King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his heir, Crown Prince and Saudi Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, according to Chinese official news agency Xinhua. The talks have so far resulted in the signing of a “comprehensive strategic partnership agreement” and 12 agreements and memoranda of understanding in topics including hydrogen, direct investment and economic development.
The two countries on Friday affirmed they will continue to “firmly support each other’s core interests,” sovereignty and territorial integrity, further pledging joint cooperation to ensure the “peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program” and urging Tehran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Chinese head of state has extended an invitation for King Salman to visit China “at a mutually convenient time,” the statement said.
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Xi arrived in Riyadh on Dec. 7 for a three-day visit at a time when Beijing seeks to revitalize its economy, while Saudi Arabia nurtures eastern relations after an energy policy conflict with the U.S.
Saudi-U.S. energy interests continue to diverge. Washington has repeatedly urged OPEC+ to release further crude supplies into the markets and ease the toll on consumers that contend with limited energy access in the wake of Russia’s Ukraine invasion and resulting sanctions. The OPEC+ October decision to reduce production quotas by 2 million barrels per day starting in November, which was upheld on Dec. 4, led to a brief war of words between U.S. and Saudi officials.
The timeline of China’s economic rebound frames the demand outlook in the crude markets, which remain rattled by concerns over broader global appetite for transport fuels amid mounting inflation rates and recessionary signals.
On the supply side, energy markets await further clarity on the Russian production impact of an EU ban that came in force on Dec. 5. Alongside it’s implementation was a program by the G-7 largest global economies that seeks to facilitate shipping and transport services for non-G7 Russian purchases transacted under a price cap.
The Brent crude contract for February delivery was trading at $76.13 per barrel at 11:55 a.m. London time Friday morning, down by 2 cents from the Dec. 8 settlement. The front-month Nymex WTI contract was at $71.79 a barrel, adding 33 cents from Thursday’s close price.
For my first reading, I opted for a text chat, as opposed to a call. (No option for video calls, BTW.) The quiz had matched me with a few readers, including one who is a self-reported clairvoyant and empath. She told me that my life themes were “caretaker, adventurer, and nurturer,” and that communication is the biggest key within my career. As a writer, I couldn’t help but agree.
But after roughly seven minutes of back and forth text, I realized at $4/minute, I was quickly racking up a bill. So for my next reading, I opted for a phone call.
The reader I chose second was a self-reported intuitive and third-generation psychic. Over a call, she told me that I had been putting others first too much, and that I was entering a time of healing and focusing on myself. To be honest, I think a lot of people would resonate with that—but it did, indeed, track with how I’ve been feeling lately, so I’ll give it to her.
She also asked for my date of birth, so I believe she was using something like numerology or astrology to base her reading off of, though I didn’t ask her how she was coming to these conclusions. (And if that sounds sketchy, you’ll be happy to know everything about you as a querent is anonymous, including your name.)
This reader had a lower rate per minute than the first reader, plus a lot more can be covered when you’re talking instead of typing, so take that into account. Still I kept my eye on the time because I was working with a fixed trial amount. She ended up giving me three free minutes for a future reading, which I appreciated, but I couldn’t help but feel was a low-key ploy to get me to spend more with her.
My third reading was another call with a reader who is self-reportedly clairaudient and clairsentient. She was probably my favorite of the three, because she got the most specific. For one thing, she told me I was going to write a book, and I feel like you couldn’t say that to just anyone—but writing a book happens to already be a life goal of mine.
This reader was the most expensive of the three, at $5/minute, and suddenly our relatively short call was a $50 expense.
Newswise — Two-dimensional materials, like transition metal dichalcogenide, have applications in public health because of their large surface area and high surface sensitivities, along with their unique electrical, optical, and electrochemical properties. A research team has undertaken a review study of methods used to modulate the properties of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD). These methods have important biomedical applications, including biosensing.
The team’s work is published in the journal Nano Research Energy on November 23, 2022.
The team’s goal is to present a comprehensive summarization of this promising field and show challenges and opportunities available in this research area. “In this review, we focus on the state-of-the-art methods to modulate properties of two-dimensional TMD and their applications in biosensing. In particular, we thoroughly discuss the structure, intrinsic properties, property modulation methods, and biosensing applications of TMD,” said Yu Lei, an assistant professor at the Institute of Materials Research, Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University.
Since graphene was discovered in 2004, two-dimensional materials, such as TMD, have attracted significant attention. Because of its unique properties, two-dimensional TMD can serve as the atomically thin platforms for energy storage and conversion, photoelectric conversion, catalysis, and biosensing. TMD also displays a wide band structure and has unusual optical properties. Yet another benefit of two-dimensional TMD is that it can be produced in large quantities at a low cost.
In public health, reliable and affordable in vitro and in vivo detection of biomolecules is essential for disease prevention and diagnosis. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, people have suffered not only from the physical disease, but also from the psychological problems related to extensive exposure to stress. Extensive stress can result in abnormal levels in biomarkers such as serotonin, dopamine, cortisol, and epinephrine. So, it is essential that scientists find non-invasive ways to monitor these biomarkers in body fluids, such as sweat, tears, and saliva. In order for health care professionals to quickly and accurately assess a person’s stress and diagnose psychological disease, biosensors are of significant importance in the diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and forensic industries.
The team reviewed the use of two-dimensional TMD as the functional material for biosensing, the approaches to modulate the properties of TMD, and different types of TMD-based biosensors including electric, optical, and electrochemical sensors. “Public health study is always a major task in preventing, diagnosing, and fighting off the diseases. Developing ultrasensitive and selective biosensors is critical for diseases prevention and diagnosing,” said Bilu Liu, an associate professor and a principal investigator at Shenzhen Geim Graphene Center, Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University.
Two-dimensional TMD is a very sensitive platform for biosensing. These two-dimensional TMD based electrical/optical/electrochemical sensors have been readily used for biosensors ranging from small ions and molecules, such as Ca2+, H+, H2O2, NO2, NH3, to biomolecules such as dopamine and cortisol, that are related to central nervous disease, and all the way to molecule complexities, such as bacteria, virus, and protein.
The research team determined that despite the remarkable potentials, many challenges related to TMD-based biosensors still need to be solved before they can make a real impact. They suggest several possible research directions. The team recommends that the feedback loop assisted by machine learning be used to reduce the testing time needed to build the database needed for finding the proper biomolecules and TMD pairs. Their second recommendation is the use of a feedback loop assisted by machine learning to achieve the on-demand property modulation and biomolecules/TMD database. Knowing that TMD-based composites exhibit excellent performance when constructed into devices, their third recommendation is that surface modifications, such as defects and vacancies, be adopted to improve the activity of the TMD-based composites. Their last recommendation is that low-cost manufacturing methods at low temperature be developed to prepare TMD. The current chemical vapor deposition method used to prepare TMD can lead to cracks and wrinkles. A low-cost, low-temperature method would improve the quality of the films. “As the key technical issues are solved, the devices based on two-dimensional TMD will be the overarching candidates for the new healthcare technologies,” said Lei.
The Tsinghua University team includes Yichao Bai and Linxuan Sun, and Yu Lei from the Institute of Materials Research, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Thermal Management Engineering and Materials, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School; along with Qiangmin Yu and Bilu Liu from the Institute of Materials Research, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, and the Shenzhen Geim Graphene Center, Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute & Institute of Materials Research, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School.
This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Guangdong Innovative and Entrepreneurial Research Team Program, the Shenzhen Basic Research Project, the Scientific Research Start-up Funds at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, and Shenzhen Basic Research Project.
Nano Research Energy is launched by Tsinghua University Press, aiming at being an international, open-access and interdisciplinary journal. We will publish research on cutting-edge advanced nanomaterials and nanotechnology for energy. It is dedicated to exploring various aspects of energy-related research that utilizes nanomaterials and nanotechnology, including but not limited to energy generation, conversion, storage, conservation, clean energy, etc. Nano Research Energy will publish four types of manuscripts, that is, Communications, Research Articles, Reviews, and Perspectives in an open-access form.
SciOpen is a professional open access resource for discovery of scientific and technical content published by the Tsinghua University Press and its publishing partners, providing the scholarly publishing community with innovative technology and market-leading capabilities. SciOpen provides end-to-end services across manuscript submission, peer review, content hosting, analytics, and identity management and expert advice to ensure each journal’s development by offering a range of options across all functions as Journal Layout, Production Services, Editorial Services, Marketing and Promotions, Online Functionality, etc. By digitalizing the publishing process, SciOpen widens the reach, deepens the impact, and accelerates the exchange of ideas.
The European Central Bank has raised concerns over an idea to impose a cap on gas prices in Europe.
Haussmann Visuals | Moment | Getty Images
The European Central Bank is worried about the potential risks to financial markets from an EU-wide cap on natural gas prices.
The bloc has been in intense discussions for several weeks over how to impose a limit on gas prices. The measure — designed to prevent sky-high costs for consumers — is proving controversial for Europe amid an acute energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, suggested in November that the cap should sit at 275 euros ($290.33) per megawatt hour. However, several member states argued this did not go far enough and was unlikely be triggered.
The Dutch TTF, Europe’s main benchmark for natural gas prices, traded around 135.50 euros per megawatt hour Friday.
Discussions on the cap continue among the EU’s 27 member states ahead of a ministerial meeting Tuesday — as the ECB warns the cap could have repercussions for financial markets.
“The ECB acknowledges that mechanisms aimed at moderating extreme price levels and volatility in wholesale gas markets may, in principle, alleviate a number of risks to financial stability, including the risks exposed during periods of elevated and volatile gas prices in 2022,” the central bank said in a document Thursday.
“However, the ECB considers that the current design of the proposed market correction mechanism may, in some circumstances, jeopardise financial stability in the euro area,” it added.
The comments are in line with concerns raised by countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, which have asked for stronger guarantees that the cap is not going to disturb markets.
Supporters of the price cap have argued that the instrument will be monitored regularly and can be stopped if regulators, including the European Central Bank, identify any financial distress.
Some are hoping that a decision on the price cap can be reached at the meeting of EU energy ministers in Brussels, Belgium.
“We hope this will close at the ministers’ level next week. But there are still discussions on the sidelines. We will see,” an official working for the prime minister of an EU country, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the talks, told CNBC Thursday.
Another official working in Brussels, who did not want to be named due to their proximity to the talks, said: “Consensus seems very much out of reach.”
The impasse over the measure highlights how sensitive — and technical — it is.
Indeed, some energy ministers have described the initial proposal to cap prices at 275 euros per megawatt hour as a “joke.”
Many nations, such as Poland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, are keen to implement the price cap. These countries are less able to mitigate the impact of the energy crisis on consumers, and have been pushing for EU-wide solutions as a result.
Kostas Skrekas, Greece’s environment and energy minister, told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum last month that a cap should be below 200 euros per megawatt hour.
“[A] price cap at 275 euro is not a price cap. Nobody can … stand buying gas at this expensive price for a long time. We surely believe that the price cap below 200 euro, between 150 and 200 euro, would be more realistic,” he said.
Two European officials confirmed to CNBC that the current proposal being discussed is a cap of 220 euros per megawatt hour. However, this could change again before ministers meet on Tuesday.
Under the same proposal, the cap would only be triggered when prices are 58 euros higher than the LNG reference price for 10 consecutive trading days, and European gas prices exceeded the price cap for two weeks.
The Municipal Theater building, the main artistic and cultural venue in Santiago, the capital of Chile, was lit up with LED bulbs in order to show local residents the benefits of energy efficiency to reduce costs and provide bright lighting. CREDIT: Fundación Chile
by Orlando Milesi (santiago)
Inter Press Service
SANTIAGO, Dec 08 (IPS) – The Energy Efficiency Law began to gradually be implemented in Chile after the approval of its regulations, but more efforts and institutions are still lacking before it can produce results.
In Chile, the energy sector accounts for 74 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, producing 68 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. For this reason, energy efficiency is decisive in tackling climate change and saving on its costs.
The law passed in February 2021 and its regulations were issued on Sept. 13 of this year, but full implementation will still take time. The law itself states that its full application will take place “gradually”, without setting precise deadlines.
For example, the energy rating of homes and new buildings is voluntary for now and will only become mandatory in 2023. In addition, only practice will show whether the capacity will exist to oversee the sector and apply sanctions.
The aims of the law include reducing the intensity of energy use and cutting GHGs.
According to the public-private organization Fundación Chile, energy efficiency has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 44 percent – a decisive percentage to mitigate climate change in this long, narrow South American country of 19.5 million people.
“For the first time in Chile, we have an Energy Efficiency Law. This is a key step in joining efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, since energy efficiency has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases by 35 percent,” the Foundation’s assistant manager for sustainability, Karien Volker, told IPS.
The law sets standards for transportation, industry, mining and the residential, public and commercial sectors. Land transportation accounts for an estimated 25 percent of the energy used in Chile and the 250 largest companies operating in the country consume 35 percent of the total.
Volker underscored that the law incorporates energy labeling, the implementation of an energy management system for large consumers and the development of a National Plan.
“Upon implementation of the law, a 10 percent reduction in energy intensity, a cumulative savings of 15.2 billion dollars and a reduction of 28.6 million tons of CO2 are expected by 2030,” she said.
She also argued that the law will push large companies to meet minimum energy efficiency standards, which will change the way they operate.
“New homes with energy efficiency certifications will raise the standard of construction in Chile and push builders to innovate,” said Volker.
She added that “the transportation sector will also be positively impacted by establishing efficiency and performance standards for vehicles entering Chile.”
Buildings with the new standards will consume only one third of the energy compared to the current ones.
In Chile, 53.3 percent of electricity is generated with renewable energy: hydroelectric, solar, biomass and geothermal. The remaining 46.7 percent comes from thermoelectric plants using natural gas, coal or petroleum derivatives, almost all of which are imported.
The refrigerators currently sold in Chile must have a mandatory label indicating their energy efficiency, where the highest A++ and A+ levels are labelled in green to demonstrate the savings they provide. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
Negative track record on energy efficiency
But in the recent history of this South American country the experience of energy savings has not been a positive one. There was total clarity in the assessment of the situation and concrete suggestions of measures to advance in energy efficiency, but nothing changed, said engineer and doctor in systems thinking Alfredo del Valle, a former advisor to the United Nations and the Chilean government in these matters.
Del Valle told IPS that between 2005 and 2007 he acted as a methodologist for the Chilean Ministry of Economy’s Country Energy Efficiency Program to formulate a national policy in this field.
“With broad public, private, academic and citizen participation, we discovered almost one hundred concrete energy efficiency potentials in transportation, industry and mining, residential and commercial buildings, household appliances, and even culture,” he explained.
However, he lamented, “Chilean politicians fail to understand what politicians in the (industrialized) North immediately understood 30 years earlier: that it is essential to invest money and political will in energy efficiency, just as we invest in energy supply.”
To illustrate, he noted that “the public budget for energy efficiency in 2020 is equivalent to just 10 million dollars compared to an investment in energy supply in the country of 4.38 billion dollars in the same year.”
According to the expert, “we need a new way of thinking and acting to be able to carry out social transformations and to be able to create our own future.”
Boric’s energy policy
The Energy Agenda 2022-2026 promoted by the leftist government of Gabriel Boric, in office since March, states that “energy efficiency is one of the most important actions for Chile to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.”
The document establishes actions and commitments to be implemented as part of the National Energy Efficiency Plan. Published at the beginning of this year, it proposes 33 measures in the productive sectors, transportation, buildings and ordinary citizens, according to the Ministry of Energy.
“With all these measures, we expect to reduce our total energy intensity by 4.5 percent by 2026 and by 30 percent by 2050, compared to 2019,” the Agenda states.
The plan announces an acceleration of the implementation of energy management systems in large consumers to encourage a more efficient use in industry, “as mandated by the Energy Efficiency Law that will be progressively implemented.”
According to the government, by 2026, 200 companies will have implemented energy management systems.
The authorities also announced support to micro, small and medium-sized companies for efficient energy use and management and will support 2000 in self-generation and energy efficiency.
“Although as a country we have made progress in the deployment of renewable energies for electricity generation, we have yet to transfer the benefits of renewable energy sources to other areas, such as the use of heat and cold in industry,” the document states.
Cambia el Foco is the name of the program promoted by Fundación Chile that included educating students to raise awareness about the need for energy efficiency. CREDIT: Fundación Chile
Improvement in housing quality
In Chile there are more than five million homes and most of them do not have adequate thermal insulation conditions, requiring a high use of energy for heating in the southern hemisphere winter and cooling in the summer.
The hope is that by making the “energy qualification” a requirement to obtain the final approval, the municipal building permit, the quality of housing using efficient equipment or non-conventional renewable energies will improve. This will allow greater savings in heating, cooling, lighting and household hot water.
In four years, the government’s Agenda aims to thermally insulate 20,000 social housing units, install 20,000 solar photovoltaic systems in low-income neighborhoods, recondition 400 schools to make them energy efficient, expand solar power systems in rural housing, improve supply in 50 schools in low-income rural areas and develop distributed generation systems up to 500 megawatts (MW).
In recent years, the Fundación Chile, together with the government and other entities, has promoted energy efficiency plans with the widespread installation of LED lightbulbs along streets and in other public spaces. It also promoted the replacement of refrigerators over 10 years old with units using more efficient and greener technologies.
One milestone was the delivery of 230,000 LED bulbs to educational facilities, benefiting more than 200 schools and a total of 73,000 students, employees and teachers.
The initiative made it possible to install one million LED bulbs, leading to an estimated saving of 4.8 percent of national consumption.
Meanwhile, the campaign for more efficient cooling expects the market share of such refrigerators to become 95 percent A++ and A+ products, to achieve savings of 1.3 terawatt hours (TWh – equivalent to one billion watt hours).
That would mean a reduction of 3.1 million tons of CO2 by 2030.
An old refrigerator accounts for 20 percent of a household’s electricity bill and a more efficient one saves up to 55 percent.
There are currently an estimated one million refrigerators in Chile that are more than 15 years old.
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, August 29, 2022.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
After a tumultuous year for financial markets, Standard Chartered outlined a number of potential surprises for 2023 that it says are being “underpriced” by the market.
Eric Robertson, the bank’s head of research and chief strategist, said outsized market moves are likely to continue next year, even if risks decline and sentiment improves. He warned investors to prepare for “another year of shaken nerves and rattled brains.”
The biggest surprise of all, according to Robertson, would be a return to “more benign economic and financial-market conditions,” with consensus pointing to a global recession and further turbulence across asset classes next year.
As such, he named eight potential market surprises that have a “non-zero probability” of occurring in 2023, which fall “materially outside of the market consensus” or the bank’s own baseline views, but are “underpriced by the markets.”
Collapsing oil prices
Oil prices surged over the first half of 2022 as a result of persistent supply blockages and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and have remained volatile throughout the remainder of the year. They declined 35% between June 14 and Nov. 28, with output cuts from OPEC+ and hopes for an economic resurgence in China preventing the slide from accelerating further.
However, Robertson suggested that a deeper-than-expected global recession, including a delayed Chinese recovery on the back of an unexpected surge in Covid-19 cases, could lead to a “significant collapse in oil demand” across even previously resilient economies in 2023.
Should a resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict occur, this would remove the “war-related risk premia” — the additional rate of return investors can expect for taking more risk — from oil, causing prices to lose around 50% of their value in the first half of 2023, according to Robertson’s list of “potential surprises.”
“With oil prices falling quickly, Russia is unable to fund its military activities beyond Q1-2023 and agrees to a ceasefire. Although peace negotiations are protracted, the end of the war causes the risk premium that had supported energy prices to disappear completely,” Robertson speculated.
“Risk related to military conflict had helped to keep front contract prices elevated relative to deferred contracts, but the decline in risk premia and the end of the war see the oil curve invert in Q1-2023.”
In this potential scenario, the collapse in oil prices would take international benchmark Brent crude from its current level of around $79 per barrel to just $40 per barrel, its lowest point since the peak of the pandemic.
The Fed has subsequently hiked its short-term borrowing rate from a target range of 0.25%-0.5% at the start of the year to 3.75%-4% in November, with a further increase expected at its December meeting. The market is pricing an eventual peak of around 5%.
Robertson said a potential risk for next year is that the Federal Open Market Committee now underestimates the economic damage inflicted by 2023’s massive interest rate hikes.
Should the U.S. economy fall into a deep recession in the first half of the year, the central bank may be forced to cut rates by up to 200 basis points, according to Robertson’s list of “potential surprises.”
“The narrative in 2023 quickly shifts as the cracks in the foundation spread from the most highly leveraged sectors of the economy to even the most stable,” he added.
“The message from the FOMC also shifts rapidly from the need to keep monetary conditions restrictive for an extended period to the need to provide liquidity to avoid a major hard landing.”
Tech stocks fall even further
Growth-oriented technology stocks took a hammering over the course of 2022 as the steep rise in interest rates increased the cost of capital.
But Standard Chartered says the sector could have even furtherto fall in 2023.
The Nasdaq 100 closed Monday down more than 29% since the start of the year, though a 15% rally between Oct. 13 and Dec. 1 on the back of softening inflation prints helped cushion the annual losses.
On his list of potential surprises for 2023, Robertson said the index could slide another 50% to 6,000.
“The technology sector broadly continues to suffer in 2023, weighed down by plunging demand for hardware, software and semiconductors,” he speculated.
“Further, rising financing costs and shrinking liquidity lead to a collapse in funding for private companies, prompting further significant valuation cuts across the sector, as well as a wave of job losses.”
Next-generation tech companies could then see a surge in bankruptcies in 2023, shrinking the market cap share of these companies on the S&P 500 from 29.5% at its peak to 20% by the end of the year, according to Robertson.
“The dominance of the tech sector in the S&P 500 drags the broader equity index lower too,” he suggested, adding: “The tech sector leads a global equity collapse.”
Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia has defeated his Republican challenger Herschel Walker in their closely watched runoff election, according to an Associated Press projection.
While Democrats already had maintained their grip on the Senate by winning other crucial races in last month’s midterm elections, Warnock’s win means his party will have a 51-49 majority in the Senate for the next two years of President Joe Biden’s term.
That’s an upgrade from their situation over the past two years, when the chamber has been split 50-50, and they’ve controlled it only because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast tiebreaking votes.
Democrats now are expected to adjust ratios on Senate committees so they have a one-vote majority on each panel. Currently, committee ratios are set at 50-50 to reflect the chamber’s split.
A 51-49 Senate also is expected to lessen the influence of two moderate Democratic senators — West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema.
Walker’s loss is another blow for Donald Trump as the former president ramps up his 2024 White House campaign. Trump already saw other allies flop in their Senate midterm races, with, for example, Mehmet Oz coming up short in Pennsylvania and Blake Masters going down in Arizona.
Warnock had been favored to win by betting markets such as PredictIt, but Cook Political Report said the contest would be close and rated it as a toss-up.
Walker faced criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his past treatment of women and gaffes while campaigning.
The former football star’s loss means the 2022 midterms end on a downbeat note for Republicans, and that’s after their hopes for a red wave were dashed. The GOP took control of the House of Representatives, but will have a slim majority in that chamber.
Analysts had said voters appeared increasingly focused on issues on which Republicans claimed high ground such as inflation. But exit polls on Nov. 8 suggested the party performed worse than expected because many Democrats and independents voted partly to show their disapproval of Trump — and those voters were energized by the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Dimon said in June that he was preparing the bank for an economic “hurricane” caused by the Federal Reserve and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
One key lesson of the past year is that the world is not ready to move away from oil and gas as the dominant source of fuel, according to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
The bank leader said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday that the ongoing war in Europe highlighted that fossil fuels are still a key component of the global economy and would remain so for the foreseeable future.
“If the lesson was learned from Ukraine, we need cheap, reliable, safe, secure energy, of which 80% comes from oil and gas. And that number’s going to be very high for 10 or 20 years,” Dimon said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year sent commodity prices soaring, including oil and natural gas. U.S. oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude traded above $100 per barrel for much of the spring and summer, though it has since eased back toward pre-war levels.
The rising price of natural gas has been a particular pain point in Europe, which previously relied on heavily on Russian gas for home heating.
Dimon said that world leaders while pursuing renewable alternatives need to focus on an “all of the above” energy strategy to maintain fuel for economies and reduce carbon emissions, not neglecting oil and gas production in the near term.
“Higher oil and gas prices are leading to more CO2. Having it cheaper has the virtue of reducing CO2, because all that’s happening around the world is that poorer nations and richer nations are turning back on their coal plants,” Dimon said.
The JPMorgan leader had previously declined a pledge to stop doing business with fossil fuels, saying in a Congressional hearing that the move would be a “road to hell for America.”
