Technology giants are partnering with geothermal start-ups as they seek to power their energy-intensive data centers with clean but reliable power sources. Several deals have been struck over the past year as Big Tech is looking to boast low-emission profiles of its energy use. The other 24/7 low-carbon energy comes from nuclear power generation, and deals have been made in that space, too. Earlier this year, Constellation Energy, the biggest owner of U.S. nuclear power plants, signed its largest-ever power purchase agreement with Microsoft, which…

In 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB-1322, the Oil Refiner Price Disclosure Act, into law. The legislation was hailed as a major step toward transparency, requiring refiners in California to report detailed monthly data on their gasoline profit margins. Specifically, refiners must disclose: The cost of crude oil purchased The wholesale price of gasoline sold The gross and net profits earned per gallon of refined gasoline Supporters, including consumer advocacy groups like Consumer Watchdog, argued that SB-1322 would expose “excessive…

Even though the EU sanctions Russian oil, Bulgaria still allows crude to be processed at the Lukoil Burgas refinery. An investigation by Ukrainian journalist Mykhailo Tkach, working for the Ukrainska Pravda, shows that Lukoil’s Bulgarian Burgas refinery is still processing Russian crude. The volumes are being transported by Russia’s shadow fleet and transshipped offshore near the coast of Bulgaria. Tkach has made videos of the ship-to-ship (STS) transfers just opposite the port of Rosenets, the main port for crude oil deliveries to…

Nuclear adoption continues accelerating, and now Virginia sure thinks it has found the way to "clean energy, billions in investment, and a solution to surging power demand". The state is going to host the world's first fusion power plant, according to the Virginia Mercury. Gov. Glenn Youngkin said this week: “Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans on building the world’s first grid scale commercial fusion power plant in the world, full stop, and it’s going to be right here in the commonwealth of Virginia.” Commonwealth Fusion…

The U.S. has experienced record solar growth in recent years, supported by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and greater access to green funding. The Solar Energies Industry Association (SEIA) has recorded record levels of added solar capacity over the last year, as more solar projects were added to the grid countrywide, significantly increasing the contribution of solar power to U.S. electricity generation. In quarter two of 2024, the U.S. solar market installed 9.4 GW of capacity, marking a 29 percent increase on…

Energy prices across Europe fell below zero for a record number of hours in 2024. An accelerated buildout of large-scale wind and solar farms has flooded European grids at peak production hours, causing surplus energy to be sold at a loss at increasingly frequent increments, for a grand total of 7,841 hours during the first eight months of this year. At their worst, prices have fallen below -€20 per megawatt hour, according to the consultancy ICIS. While rapidly expanding solar capacity is the main culprit for the price inversions, a decades-long…

Vladimir Putin’s end-of-year Q&A session with reporters and the public is billed as a chance for Russian citizens to ask the president about the issues that matter to them most. But while much of the televised marathon focuses on domestic affairs, Putin always uses it to send signals to the West and the rest of the world, too. This year, Putin’s messaging was colored by expectations that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will push or an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine, or at least for a cease-fire, when he takes office…

Via Metal Miner   Difficult market conditions have prompted Romanian steel industry leader ArcelorMittal Hunedoara to reduce production until year’s end. According to a notice provided to the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the longs producer’s board of directors decided to reduce production from December 9-31 and pay 75% of salaries to employees impacted by the steps. The December 6 notice also cited the “economic difficulties faced by the company due to the lack of orders and implicitly of the production volume, as well as a…

The future of data centers is about to make a huge draw on the power grid. According to a DOE-backed report from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, U.S. data center energy use could nearly triple by 2028, eating up as much as 12% of the country’s electricity. Why? Blame AI and its insatiable hunger for powerful chips and energy-guzzling cooling systems. Currently, data centers are responsible for a modest 4% of U.S. power demand. But with AI servers becoming the star of the show, the power draw has already doubled since 2017. The GPU chips that…

The future of data centers is about to make a huge draw on the power grid. According to a DOE-backed report from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, U.S. data center energy use could nearly triple by 2028, eating up as much as 12% of the country’s electricity. Why? Blame AI and its insatiable hunger for powerful chips and energy-guzzling cooling systems. Currently, data centers are responsible for a modest 4% of U.S. power demand. But with AI servers becoming the star of the show, the power draw has already doubled since 2017. The GPU chips that…

The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States stayed the same again this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, after seeing no change in the week prior. The total rig count remained flat at 589 total rigs, according to Baker Hughes, down 31 from this same time last year. The number of oil rigs rose by 1 to 483—down by 15 compared to this time last year. The number of gas rigs fell by one rig, landing at 102, a loss of 18 active gas rigs from this time last year. Miscellaneous rigs…

It’s happened again. The Druzhba pipeline—Russia’s aging oil lifeline to Europe—has gone silent, leaving Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic without their usual crude oil fix. According to sources, the culprit is a “technical issue” at a Russian pumping station in the Bryansk region. Transneft, the pipeline’s operator, has yet to speak on the issue, but Belarus has confirmed the disruption, saying its refineries are dipping into reserves to keep running. This pipeline, capable of carrying 2 million…

The European Union is prepared to discuss with U.S. President-elect Trump boosting economic ties, including in the energy sector, an EU spokesperson told Reuters on Friday, hours after Trump threatened to impose “tariffs all the way” on the bloc if it doesn’t buy large volumes of American oil and gas. The EU is ready to discuss common interests in the energy sector with the U.S. as Europe is looking to phase out imports of Russian energy and diversify its sources of supply, the EU spokesperson told Reuters. Earlier on Friday,…

The annual average natural gas demand at U.S. LNG export plants is on track to inch down this year for the first decline since America began exporting LNG in 2016, according to data from LSEG cited by Reuters. Outages at some LNG facilities and delays to the construction of new plants are likely to slightly reduce feedgas to the eight large LNG export plants this year compared to 2023. Feedgas volumes have now eased to an average of 13.0 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) as of December 20, down from an average of 13.1 bcfd last year, per the LSEG…

Turkey has obtained a waiver from the United States to pay for natural gas to Russia via the now-sanctioned Russian Gazprombank, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told Reuters on Friday. In November, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Gazprombank in what the Treasury said was “another major step in implementing commitments made by G7 leaders to curtail Russia’s use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine.” The latest…

Turkey has obtained a waiver from the United States to pay for natural gas to Russia via the now-sanctioned Russian Gazprombank, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told Reuters on Friday. In November, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Gazprombank in what the Treasury said was “another major step in implementing commitments made by G7 leaders to curtail Russia’s use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine.” The latest…

Turkey has obtained a waiver from the United States to pay for natural gas to Russia via the now-sanctioned Russian Gazprombank, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told Reuters on Friday. In November, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Gazprombank in what the Treasury said was “another major step in implementing commitments made by G7 leaders to curtail Russia’s use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine.” The latest…

Turkey has obtained a waiver from the United States to pay for natural gas to Russia via the now-sanctioned Russian Gazprombank, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told Reuters on Friday. In November, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Gazprombank in what the Treasury said was “another major step in implementing commitments made by G7 leaders to curtail Russia’s use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine.” The latest…

Iran’s oil is increasingly finding its way into floating storage offshore Southeast Asia instead of at customers as a recent raft of U.S. sanctions on tankers shipping Iranian oil has made Chinese buyers more careful. The volumes of Iranian oil stored on tankers at sea, predominantly offshore Malaysia’s eastern coasts, have swelled to their highest levels since the end of July, per data from Kpler cited by Bloomberg. As of December 15, a total of 16.82 million barrels of Iranian oil were sitting on tankers at sea without going anywhere.…

Iran’s oil is increasingly finding its way into floating storage offshore Southeast Asia instead of at customers as a recent raft of U.S. sanctions on tankers shipping Iranian oil has made Chinese buyers more careful. The volumes of Iranian oil stored on tankers at sea, predominantly offshore Malaysia’s eastern coasts, have swelled to their highest levels since the end of July, per data from Kpler cited by Bloomberg. As of December 15, a total of 16.82 million barrels of Iranian oil were sitting on tankers at sea without going anywhere.…