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- XXIII Cumbre del ALBA-TCP: por una alternativa al neoliberalismo
- México denuncia informe del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU.
- Registran dos muertos por fuertes lluvias en Paraguay
- Bolivia rechaza informe de EE.UU. sobre presuntas violaciones a DDHH
- Presidente de Cuba califica a ALBA-TCP como alianza de solidaridad
- Presidente de Nicaragua exige cese de invasiones imperialistas
- Bolivia demanda respeto a libre determinación de los pueblos
- Presidente de Venezuela presenta la Agenda ALBA 2030
- Inicia XXIII Cumbre de Jefes de Estado y de Gobierno del ALBA-TCP
- Índices de pobreza bajan en Brasil, según estudio local
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit Hungary, Serbia, and France on a high-profile tour in early May, marking his first trip to Europe since the pandemic. Here's what to watch. Finding Perspective: The trip will be rich in symbolism and comes at a crucial time with Russia advancing on the battlefield in Ukraine, escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels, and potential fallout from November's U.S. election. Against this backdrop, Xi will be looking to repair some of the damage done to the relationship with Europe since his last trip…
When policymakers both here and abroad deregulated and restructured the electricity industry they made four big mistakes. And we are still living with them. Number 1: The architects of deregulation, being economists, focused on market structure and operating savings when the big problem facing the industry was increasing capital expenditures and adjusting to climate change. They diverted attention from an existential challenge to achieve modest operating savings that rarely flowed through to consumers. They created markets that…
Sam Altman and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz are betting on solar power and energy storage that can supply a low-carbon future to artificial intelligence data centers. Altman, the face of the AI chatbot boom, has also invested in nuclear power technology to fuel America's powering up with clean, reliable energy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Altman and the private US venture capital firm are among the investors putting $20 million into Exowatt, a company that aims to solve the clean-energy needs of AI data centers. …
The price of carbon dioxide on the European Union’s emissions trading markets, ETS, has taken a bad tumble. On the face of it, this is good news—it means industries covered by the scheme are emitting less. But in this case, fewer emissions mean less money for the transition. Earlier this year, the price per carbon permit on the ETS dropped to the lowest in over two years, at 55 euro, equal to some $58. The drop came as a surprise to ETS architects and supporters in Brussels, who had plans for much higher emission prices with a view…
There are many myths about energy and the economy. In this post I explore the situation surrounding some of these myths. My analysis strongly suggests that the transition to a new Green Economy is not progressing as well as hoped. Green energy planners have missed the point that our physics-based economy favors low-cost producers. In fact, the US and EU may not be far from an economic downturn because subsidized green approaches are not truly low-cost. [1] The Chinese people have long believed that the safest place to store savings is in empty…
China will undoubtedly become an even more significant buyer of Russian metals following the London Metal Exchange’s ban on newly produced Russian aluminum, copper, and nickel. China has already evolved into a major market for Russian-made products following dwindling demand in the West, and these new Russian sanctions will likely only further cement that position. The LME ban leaves the Shanghai Futures Exchange as the only major bourse to accept shipments of these metals from Russia. A recent report in the South China Morning Post…
UK firms are planning to invest hundreds of billions in an attempt to bubble-wrap supply chains and bring manufacturing closer to home, new research suggests. Investment in re-industrialisation among UK firms is expected to hit $423.5bn over the course next three years, according to research from professional services firm Capgemini, up from $351.4bn over the last three years. The research, based on a survey of 200 supply chain and manufacturing executives at UK firms with more than $1bn in revenue, suggests that the trend towards re-shoring is…
As the world heats up, several countries experiencing greater wildfires. Last year, Canada battled record blazes and despite getting them under control, several fires continue to rage out of site. The so-called ‘zombie fires’ are hidden beneath layers of snow and continue to burn at an unprecedented rate, raising fears of what will happen when the snow subsides. In 2023, Canada experienced a record year of wildfires that burnt through around 45.7 million acres of land, equivalent to around twice the land area of Portugal.…
Europe is "returning to petrol", according to a new article from Yahoo Finance which highlighted Volkswagen's EV sales as the canary in the coalmine. Sales of Volkswagen's electric vehicles have declined by nearly 25% in Europe, with a noticeable shift back to gasoline-powered cars amid waning interest in battery-operated models, the report says. It notes that the downturn, observed in the initial quarter of the year, is attributed to heightened inflation and escalating energy costs, which have cooled consumer enthusiasm for electric cars.…
Canada has spent a lot of time and money building itself up to be one of the biggest global producers of hydropower electricity. The country is second only to China in hydroelectricity production, and has planned to vastly expand its infrastructure to become a hydro superpower capable of supplying a good portion of its own energy needs through hydroelectricity as well as export clean energy and offer considerable energy storage capacity to the Northeastern United States. But those plans have turned out to have some considerable insecurities as recent…
Continued expansion in China’s coal fleet and a slowdown in plant retirements in the United States and Europe in 2023 resulted in the highest net increase in global operating coal capacity since 2016, research group Global Energy Monitor said in its annual survey. While the slower retirements outside China are expected to be a short-lived blip in a long-term trend, China’s massive annual additions of coal-fired capacity put the world’s second-largest economy “badly off track to meet several climate targets” this…
As the U.S. introduces a wide array of alternative energy options, the government is rapidly seeking ways to improve and expand the grid system. Much of the grid infrastructure is outdated, built to rely on electricity supplies from a few major energy hubs. However, as more green energy projects crop up in atypical locations – such as rural regions and offshore sites – it is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure that energy will reach the grid for distribution. Many energy experts believe it will take a complete overhaul to prepare…
Despite the continued reliance on fossil fuels by several Southeast Asian countries, many governments in the region are going full steam ahead on energy transition plans, as they invest heavily in renewables and clean tech. Thanks to funding from international donors, some countries in Southeast Asia are finally able to plan for a greener future, as they establish strategies to eventually decarbonise their economies in line with a global green transition. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries have pledged to reduce…
Via Metal Miner Month-over-month, the Construction MMI (Monthly Metals Index) moved sideways for the fourth month in a row, only sliding down a slight 2.87%. Of all industrial metals, iron ore suffered the worst drop in price by far, hitting a 10-month low before a slight rebound. The main component holding the index up was aluminum 1050 sheet from Europe. The manufacturing boom in the U.S. construction industry continues to aid in the demand for industrial metals like steel and aluminum. However, high interest rates remain the talk of the town.…
Dark days ahead in São Paulo, the industrial and commercial hub of Brazil. They noticed last month, after a three day blackout hit the city’s center and its poorer neighborhoods, although a previous power outage in November was a portent of things to come. Consultants contend that the electric company has underinvested for years and that the city’s grid will collapse within three years unless corrective action is taken—which sounds a lot like Thames Water. The electric company declared that it was in “full compliance…
Latin America boasts abundant geothermal energy resources, offering a promising avenue for clean energy production, decarbonization of industrial processes and bolstering energy security. Despite these favorable conditions, only a fraction of its potential has been harnessed, with a mere 2 gigawatts electrical (GWe) currently utilized out of a total potential of 33 GWe. The bulk of this utilization comes from Mexico, Costa Rica and El Salvador, which collectively account for about 75% of the existing capacity. Rystad Energy forecasts show geothermal…
For weeks, now, British editors, letter writers and resident economic thinkers in the government have been debating how to preserve Thames Water as an investor-owned entity. We might ask, “Why bother?”, but if you are a British neo-liberal intellectual, the superiority of private ownership is dogma, so don’t ask. And if you are in the energy business, you might ask why you should care? To which we would answer that some energy consumers soon may ask what advantage private ownership confers on their energy suppliers, you know,…
African and Western officials are concerned that the conflicts and coups in the Sahel region could spill over to the coast of West Africa, which hosts several major oil production projects and export terminals. Since 2020, there have been military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, while violence from Islamist insurgents has spiked in recent months. Anxiety has grown over potential spillovers of extremist violence into the coastal countries in West Africa, including Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo, all west of Nigeria, Africa's top crude…
Iran is finding it increasingly challenging to maintain its balanced approach in the Caucasus. Fresh developments keep jiggling Tehran’s diplomatic scales. Two major developments in recent years – Azerbaijan’s reconquest of Nagorno-Karabakh and Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine – created new diplomatic openings for Iran. The changed geopolitical environment has enabled Iran and Azerbaijan to smooth over what for much of the post-Soviet period had been a prickly relationship. At the same time, Iran’s traditionally…
Via Metal Miner Month over month, rare earth metals witnessed new price lows not seen since September 2020. While neodymium oxide and praseodymium oxide witnessed the sharpest drop out of all of the components of the Rare Earths MMI (Monthly Metals Index), the index fell by 5.08% overall. But with price points nearing pre-pandemic lows, the index may have finally found a bottom following six straight months of declines. Rare Earth Metals Nearing Pre-Pandemic Price Lows A recent S&P Global article shed some light on the year-over-year decline…
Tesla’s sales showed a disastrous slump in the first quarter of 2024, with deliveries falling far below even the most pessimistic market estimates. Tesla reported just 386,810 vehicle deliveries, marking the company’s lowest sales quarter since the third quarter of 2022. The level of deliveries marked an 8.5% slump compared to the same quarter last year, and a whopping 20% nosedive from the previous quarter. Altogether, it’s the electric vehicle company’s biggest non-pandemic decline in over a decade. In the wake…
The energy storage sector is on the verge of explosion. As leading economies around the world race to install more and more renewable energy production capacity, the nature of our energy landscape is changing, and the grid will need significant advances and infrastructural supports to keep up. One of these key supports is energy storage, which can manage and even out the variable flow of renewable energy to and from the grid. Due to its central role in energy security in an increasingly decarbonized world, the energy security sector could double…
The big Cambridge-Oxford boat race on the Thames is the posh British equivalent of March Madness. But there was a big problem this year. The Thames is polluted. The oarsmen had to propel themselves in a sea of e. coli. Unlike the citizens of Flint, MI, who had to face years of polluted water, the oarsmen had a choice. They didn’t have to row. But we are not writing about water equity. This is about utility regulation, and how Americans got something right. Thames Water, the biggest water utility in the UK, was privatized in the last…
For decades, Big Tech has been one of the largest and most innovative proponents of clean energy. Silicon Valley giants have put considerable amounts of money and effort into making their companies greener and supporting renewable energy growth. But in recent years, the conversation around the tech sector’s energy use has changed from one of pride and optimism to a far more anxious conversation colored by an uncertain future. The problem? Artificial Intelligence. While renewable energy production is on the rise and incentives to expand…
