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NEW ENERGY REPORT SUGGESTS TROUBLE FOR PARIS AGREEMENT TARGETS: According to the Statistical Review of World Energy report, published today, 2022 saw record renewable energy growth—with solar and wind power alone reaching a 12% share of power generation. But the growth in the renewables sector mostly offset lost nuclear power, which dropped by 4.4% in 2022, rather than replacing fossil fuels, according to the report.
The drop in nuclear power was centered primarily in France, the European Union’s nuclear powerhouse, which traditionally accounts for more than half of the bloc’s nuclear power generation. The country struggled to repair its aging fleet of nuclear reactors for much of 2022—and the outages ultimately reduced its nuclear output by 23% compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, energy consumption increased in all regions besides Europe, which sought to rapidly curb its consumption following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its throttling of piped gas to the EU.
The net result is that fossil fuels accounted for an unchanged 82% of global energy supply for the year, and emissions increased by 0.8% again despite the renewables growth. Global energy demand as a whole rose by 1% for the year.
Spending on new renewable energy projects is estimated to have reached around half a trillion dollars for the first time on record, according to a Bloomberg NEF analysis.
But even with that level of investment, “we are still heading in the opposite direction to that required by the Paris Agreement,” Energy Institute President Juliet Davenport said in a statement.
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CLEANUP CONTINUES AFTER YELLOWSTONE RIVER TRAIN DERAILMENT: Montana state officials and federal officials said that early testing did not show any threats to the water or air near Yellowstone River, two days after a 10-car freight train carrying hazardous materials fell into the water this weekend.
The train cars, which were carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur, fell into the waterway in Montana as a result of a bridge collapse, and remained in the river over the weekend as officials worked to assess the scope of the damage and how to best remove them.
The chief of emergency services for Montana’s Stillwater County said Saturday that the amount of cargo spilled was “unknown,” and that water quality testing is being overseen by both the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA, which is also monitoring air quality downwind of the bridge collapse. So far, officials said, no toxic gasses in the air have been detected.
“Water quality testing will continue until the cleanup is complete and at this time there are no known risks to the public drinking water,” Montana Department of Environmental Quality spokesman, Kevin Stone, told reporters.
OIL DEMAND TO HIT 110 MILLION BPD IN 2045, OPEC SAYS: OPEC’s secretary general said today the cartel expects oil demand to rise to 110 million barrels per day by 2045, an increase of 23% compared to the current forecasts.
“Oil is irreplaceable for the foreseeable future,” OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said today in Malaysia, speaking at the first-ever Energy Asia conference.
He said OPEC still predicts oil to comprise 29% of the global energy mix by 2045 as the world’s energy demand doubles. (For context, oil made up 30.9% of the world’s energy mix in 2021.) The estimates come despite the International Energy Agency forecasting oil demand growth to slow from 2.4 million bpd in 2023 to 400,000 bpd by 2028, a trend it said will continue through the end of the decade.
But Al Ghais predicted the world will need more oil, not less—though he also acknowledged renewables will play a greater role in the global energy mix going forward. “We see global energy demand increasing by 23% through 2045,” he said. Read more here.
BLACKROCK CEO ‘ASHAMED’ OF BEING PART OF ESG DEBATE: Blackrock CEO Larry Fink said he is no longer using the term “ESG,” or environmental, social, governance, when referring to certain investment strategies, saying yesterday he is “ashamed” of being part of a debate that has become a political cudgel, and one that he said has been “misused by the far left and the far right.”
Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival yesterday, Fink said he is “ashamed of being part of this conversation,” telling attendees that his investment letters emphasizing ESG investments were “never meant to be a political statement,” but rather “to identify long-term issues to our long-term investors.”
Still, he backtracked slightly on that sentiment just moments later. “I never said I was ashamed,” he told the crowd incorrectly, before clarifying: “I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”
His remarks come as ESG investments have become a polarizing issue in many states— most prominently, Texas and Florida, where leaders have announced boycotts against ESG firms and derided the so-called “woke” investment strategies.
TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT TO ANNOUNCE $1.7B FOR ELECTRIC BUSES: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will announce nearly $1.7 billion today in new grants for electric and low-emissions buses today, the latest tranche of funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law aimed at electrifying the U.S. public transport fleets.
The funds will go towards transit projects in 46 states and territories and will purchase 1,700 U.S.-build buses—including half that will have zero carbon emissions.
“Every day, millions of Americans climb aboard over 60,000 buses to get to work, to school, doctor’s appointments, everywhere they need to be,” Buttigieg told reporters. “These are unprecedented levels of investment when it comes to putting modern cleaner buses on the road.”
The announcement today is the second round to support public transportation and related infrastructure, bringing total funds spent to $3.3 billion. The Biden administration said it plans to spend an additional $5 billion by 2026 as it looks to slash greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from the transportation sector.
NYC DRAFT RULE CRACKS DOWN ON COAL AND WOOD-FIRED PIZZA OVENS: Coal- and wood-fired pizza ovens in New York City could soon be forced to make pricey renovations under a new proposed rule from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). According to the text of the draft rule, any restaurants in the city using coal-fired or wood-fired ovens installed before 2016 would be required to install a special filter to slash the oven’s emissions by 75%, and hire an engineer or architect to attest that such a filter indeed achieves the reduction of carbon emissions and particulate matter.
While it’s unclear just how pricey the updates would be, one Brooklyn restaurant owner told the New York Post he’s already spent $20,000 on the filter in anticipation of the rule.
“All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality,” a DEP spokesman, Ted Timbers, told the Post. “This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible.”
WHITE HOUSE PUSHES TO RESOLVE KIDS’ CLIMATE CASE: The Biden administration has asked the Ninth Circuit to dismiss a lawsuit over global warming that pitted a group of 16 young people against the state of Montana.
That case, which was argued earlier this month, centered on the question of whether Montana had violated its own constitution by embracing fossil fuel projects and ignoring climate change. (Under Montana’s Environmental Policy Act, state agencies are required to weigh environmental health against the development of new energy resources.)
But in a filing submitted last week to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Biden administration asked the court to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the subject is “not different in any relevant sense” from a case it had examined and rejected in 2020, when it determined the constitution did not guarantee the right to a stable climate system.
“Because the now-operative complaint is not different in any relevant sense from the complaint that the Ninth Circuit examined and rejected in 2020, this Court should comply with the Ninth Circuit,” the administration argued. Read more from Bloomberg Law here.
The Rundown
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Bloomberg Canada’s explosive wildfires have damaged a forest carbon offset project
