Last Energy Signs Deals Worth $19 Billion for Nuclear Plants

Last Energy Inc., a startup developing advanced, smaller nuclear power plants, completed four deals worth $18.9 billion to build 34 reactors in Europe. The Washington-based company expects to install the first of its 20-megawatt systems as soon as 2025, Chief Executive Officer Bret Kugelmass said in an interview Monday. Last is building its first system in Texas, but is still seeking approval from regulators in Poland and the UK, where it closed the Europe deals. Last is part of a wave of companies seeking to install smaller reactors that could be manufactured in factories and assembled on-site. The approach is expected to make them faster and cheaper to build than conventional nuclear plants, but the technology is still untested. Kugelmass said the agreements validate the strategy and show growing demand for nuclear energy. "It's huge for us, and it's a milestone ...

Russia-China ties enter ‘new era’ as Xi meets Putin in Moscow

China’s President Xi Jinping has said he signed an agreement with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin bringing their ties into a “new era” of cooperation, as the two leaders called for “responsible dialogue” to resolve the Ukraine crisis. “We signed a statement on deepening the strategic partnership and bilateral ties which are entering a new era,” Xi said following talks with Putin in the Kremlin on Tuesday. Full text: China’s position on settling the Ukraine Crisis list 2 of 3 China’s Xi calls for ‘rational way’ out of Ukraine conflict list 3 of 3 Putin says ready to discuss China’s Ukraine plan at Xi talks end of list He added that China and Russia should work more closely to push forward greater “practical cooperation”. In turn, Putin said “all agreements have been reached” and that economic cooperation between Moscow and Beijing was a “priority” for Russia. The Chinese leader visited ...

Gasoline Is About To Get More Expensive

Here’s some bad news for drivers of luxury cars and large sport-utility vehicles who are pumping the top grade of gasoline: the premium they pay over regular fuel is getting pricier. US and European refiners are scrambling to get enough octane to make high-quality gasoline. There are several potential reasons for the shortfall, including the fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the impact of US environmental regulations and a lack of refining capacity. The net effect is that it’s making the fuel even more expensive than usual, when compared to regular unleaded. In the US, the price gap is around 75 cents a gallon — about 15% more than during the same period last year — data from automotive group AAA show. In the UK, the premium has widened by 25% on an annual basis, the most recent monthly data show. Octane itself ...

A Run on the Planet

Banking rarely moves quickly—there are thirty-year mortgages, and ten-year certificates of deposit, and we still talk about “banker’s hours.” But when things go badly, as they did last week in Silicon Valley, the scary unwinding can come in the blink of an eye. One result of the rescue of the California bank will be to further entrench the four huge money-center banks—Chase, Citi, Wells-Fargo, and Bank of America. They were closing in on fifty percent of American deposits already, and that status as giants will likely draw in yet more money going forward because everyone understands that they are much too big to fail: at least since 2008, it’s been clear that they have the implicit backing of the federal government and its printing presses. More than ever, they will be the center of the financial world—a kind of money state. Which means, in ...

The Anthropocene Has Created A New Disease: Plasticosis

A recently published study appearing in the journal PLOS ONE has found since 2005 a rapid increase in plastic particles in the oceans of the world. The data was collected from 11,777 surface water sampling stations. The research covers the period from 1995 to 2019 and estimates that between 1.1 and 4.9 million tons of floating plastic could be found in the upper water column of the ocean. See the distribution of plastic from the sampling stations in the map included below. Without intervention, the study estimated the volume of plastic would increase 2.6 times by 2040. The sample distribution of plastic pollution was collected from 11,777 stations highlighted in purple. (Image credit: PLOS ONE) The authors of the study stated that the environmental challenge begins with standardized monitoring and a global enforceable international agreement to stop plastic emissions. Is Plastic an Environmental ...

Did The EIA Finally Get Realistic About U.S. Shale Output?

Readers will recall that, for the last several months, I have noted that US oil production per the EIA's weekly Petroleum Status Report was inconsistent with the data from the EIA's monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) The graph below shows the state of play as of last week. The two red arrows at right show the contradictory trends, with total oil production essentially flat while shale oil production is shown rising at a healthy clip. I have noted that this contradiction would have to be resolved by either increasing the weekly numbers or reducing shale oil output. We now have the answer. The graph below shows the state of play as of March 14th, when the EIA issued the March DPR. It shows simply massive downward reductions in US shale oil output. In the March report, shale oil output from the key plays ...

Examining Alaska’s Biggest Oil Drilling Project in Decades

Breaking down the recent decision to approve the Willow oil project in Alaska, which also requires new habitat safeguards for the North Slope This week, the Biden Administration approved a scaled-back version of a major oil project on Alaska’s North Slope. The decision to greenlight the ConocoPhillips Willow project was announced on Monday, following many months of consultation with elected officials, local communities, Alaska Native leaders, and other stakeholders. As a non-partisan conservation organization that supports collaborative solutions to complex natural resource management issues, the TRCP team feels a responsibility to guide hunters and anglers through the heated rhetoric around this announcement. Here’s our topline assessment of the decision to approve the biggest oil field in Alaska in decades, and what it could mean for important wildlife habitat in Northwest Alaska. What Is the Willow Project and Where Would It Be Constructed? Willow is ...

USA EIA Cuts 2023 Oil Price Forecasts

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) lowered its Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil price forecasts for 2023 in its latest short term energy outlook (STEO), which was released this week. According to the March STEO, the EIA now sees the Brent spot price averaging $82.95 per barrel and the WTI spot price averaging $77.10 per barrel this year. In its previous STEO, which was released at the start of February, the EIA projected that the Brent spot price would average $83.63 per barrel and that the WTI spot price would average $77.84 per barrel in 2023. The March and February STEOs had identical oil price forecasts for 2024. They both saw the Brent spot price averaging $77.57 per barrel and the WTI spot price averaging $71.57 per barrel next year. “We expect that the Brent crude oil spot price will fall ...

Newly discovered enzyme that turns air into electricity

Australian scientists have discovered an enzyme that converts air into energy. The finding, published today in the journal Nature, reveals that this enzyme uses the low amounts of the hydrogen in the atmosphere to create an electrical current. This finding opens the way to create devices that literally make energy from thin air. The research team, led by Dr. Rhys Grinter, Ph.D. student Ashleigh Kropp, and Professor Chris Greening from the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Melbourne, Australia, produced and analyzed a hydrogen-consuming enzyme from a common soil bacterium. Recent work by the team has shown that many bacteria use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source in nutrient-poor environments. "We've known for some time that bacteria can use the trace hydrogen in the air as a source of energy to help them grow and survive, including in Antarctic soils, ...

EU agrees to push for worldwide phaseout of fossil fuels

European Union countries have agreed to push for the global phaseout of fossil fuels at COP28. It is part of the bloc’s promise to support and accelerate the energy transition ahead of the climate summit in Dubai this November. Faced with climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and the fallout of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the EU says that our dependence on fossil fuels leaves us vulnerable. Market volatility and geopolitical risk as well as the environmental and climate impacts of emissions-spewing fossil fuels are all grave concerns. “The shift towards a climate neutral economy will require the global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels,” the Council stated in a text released on Thursday. Fossil fuel use should peak in the near future if we are to reach net zero, it adds, while acknowledging a transitional role for natural gas. “The EU will systematically promote and call ...

Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant lost all off-site power

Vienna, Austria Video of 230309 DG BoG Ukraine Statement Before we start ...

When The Economy Gets Squeezed By Too Little Energy

Most people have a simple, but wrong, idea about how the world economy will ...

Kunstler: We’ll Soon Find Out

In an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier last Tuesday, FBI Director Chris Wray ...

The End of the Oil Age Gets Postponed Again

It looks like we have to wait a little more to see the end ...