Tag: Energy and Power

Brazil’s Clashing Goals: Protect the Amazon and Pump Lots More Oil

Through his office window, the head of Brazil’s state-run oil company looked out at the cluttered landscape of Rio de Janeiro. Looking back at him, across the city’s run-down high-rises, was the looming statue of Christ the Redeemer. Hawks circled an overflowing trash heap. Plumes of smoke rose from a blaze in a hillside shantytown. […]

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How China Came to Dominate the World in Solar Energy

China unleashed the full might of its solar energy industry last year. It installed more solar panels than the United States has in its history. It cut the wholesale price of panels it sells by nearly half. And its exports of fully assembled solar panels climbed 38 percent while its exports of key components almost […]

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‘We’re All Climate Economists Now’

In early January in San Antonio, dozens of Ph.D. economists packed into a small windowless room in the recesses of a Grand Hyatt to hear brand-new research on the hottest topic of their annual conference: how climate change is affecting everything. The papers in this session focused on the impact of natural disasters on mortgage […]

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Texas Leads in Renewable Energy, but Gas Softened the Recent Chill

So far, they’ve been right. In areas of Texas where temperatures dipped the lowest, it has been frigid but sunny. Solar power performed well and, overall, provided a small share of total electricity generated. In Texas, winds die down in winter and aren’t expected to contribute as much to the energy mix as in the […]

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California Has Dealt a Blow to Renewable Energy, Some Businesses Say

California has long championed renewable energy, but a change in the state’s policies last year has led to a sharp decline in the installation of residential rooftop solar in the state. Thousands of companies — including installers, manufacturers and distributors — are reeling from the new policy, which took effect in April and greatly reduced […]

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Freezing Weather Will Test the Strength of Texas’ Power Grid

Experts said the coming cold would not last as long as the freeze of 2021 but could resemble the conditions in 2022, known as Winter Storm Elliot. Snow and ice were not expected to widely affect the state next week, officials said. Temperatures could reach overnight lows in the single digits in Amarillo and the […]

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As Utility Bills Rise, Low-Income Americans Struggle for Access to Clean Energy

Cindy Camp is one of many Americans facing rising utility costs. Ms. Camp, who lives in Baltimore with three family members, said her gas and electric bills kept “going up and up” — reaching as high as $900 a month. Her family has tried to use less hot water by doing fewer loads of laundry, […]

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Britain’s Economy Is ‘Not Working.’ Here Are 2 Key Reasons.

In the countryside of Cambridgeshire, a British semiconductor start-up was ready to expand beyond its lab and open a manufacturing base. But the company’s ambitions came with unexpected costs to bring enough electricity to the new site. The potential bill? One million pounds. The company, Paragraf, makes chips using graphene, an ultrathin carbon. Its devices […]

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At COP28, an Oil Man Got a Deal on Quitting Oil

It was an unlikely scene: Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of one of the world’s biggest oil companies, stood before negotiators from nearly 200 nations on Wednesday and heralded a major new climate agreement that pledges to transition the global economy away from fossil fuels. In language reminiscent of an award acceptance speech, Mr. Al Jaber […]

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What Ails Offshore Wind: Supply Chains, Ships and Interest Rates

A few years ago, interest in offshore wind energy was so strong that developers proposed spending tens of billions of dollars to plunk hundreds of turbines the size of skyscrapers in the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to Virginia. But several of those projects have recently hit the skids after executives miscalculated the impact that the […]

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Where the World Is (and Isn’t) Making Progress on Climate Change

To tackle dangerous global warming, countries have started to clean up their power plants and cars. But emissions from heavy industry — like cement, steel or chemical factories — have been harder to curb and are now on pace to become by far the world’s largest source of planet-warming pollution. That’s one big takeaway from […]

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Heat Pump Installations Slow, Impeding Biden’s Climate Goals

More Americans are buying heat pumps, an environmentally friendly alternative to furnaces and air-conditioners that can significantly lower monthly energy bills. But the pace of installations has slowed in the past year, posing an obstacle to the Biden administration’s climate plans. Rising interest rates and inflation combined with a slow and confusing rollout of federal […]

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A Package of Bold Laws Puts Michigan on a Fast Track to Renewable Energy

The Michigan Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a bundle of clean energy bills, transforming a state at the center of industrial America into a leader in the fight against climate change. The legislation, which passed both chambers of the Statehouse with narrow Democratic majorities, represents a turnaround for a state that had long […]

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How Your Child’s School Bus Might Prevent Blackouts

The four vehicles parked at a depot in South Burlington, Vt., look no different from the yellow school buses familiar to millions of schoolchildren. But beneath their steel shells, these buses are packed with technology that could be vital in the transition to clean energy. While their main job remains transporting children, the vehicles take […]

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Fact-Checking Trump on Energy and Jobs at a Houston Rally

At a campaign rally in Houston on Thursday that opened with former President Donald J. Trump erroneously referring to jailed Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants as “hostages,” the Republican primary front-runner used a series of false and misleading claims to make his case for another term in the White House. Mr. Trump’s speech, delivered at […]

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In a Warming World, Clean Energy Stocks Fall While Oil Prospers

Heat, drought, flood and famine. Evidence of climate change is all around us. If the planet is to avoid even more severe consequences from global warming, the world’s leading energy agency says, consumption of oil, coal and natural gas needs to be reduced much more rapidly, and clean energy sources like wind and solar power […]

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China Is Winning in Solar Power, but Its Coal Use Is Raising Alarms

China is installing about as many solar panels and wind turbines as the rest of the world combined, and is on track to meet its target for clean energy six years early. It is using renewables to meet nearly all of the growth in its electricity needs. Yet there is another side to that rapid […]

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Orsted, Offshore Wind Firm, Cancels N.J. Projects

Orsted, the Danish company that is a leading offshore wind farm developer, said on Wednesday that it would scrap plans to build two wind farms off the coast of New Jersey, forcing the company to write off as much as $5.6 billion. The move was further evidence that offshore wind in the United States is […]

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Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Farm Gets Federal Approval

The Interior Department on Tuesday approved a plan to install up to 176 giant wind turbines off the coast of Virginia, clearing the way for what would be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm yet. The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, to be built by Dominion Energy, is the fifth commercial-scale offshore wind project approved […]

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Energy Dept. Pours Billions into Electric Grids

The Energy Department on Monday announced $1.3 billion to help build three large power lines across six states, part of a new gusher of money from Washington to upgrade America’s electric grids so they can handle more wind and solar power and better tolerate extreme weather. But officials warned that money won’t be enough. In […]

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Biden Seeks to Tame Oil Prices if Mideast Conflict Sends Them Soaring

Biden administration officials, worried that a growing conflict in the Middle East could send global oil prices soaring, are looking for ways to hold down American gasoline prices if such a jump occurs. Those efforts include discussions with large oil-producing nations like Saudi Arabia that are holding back supply and with American oil producers who […]

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I.E.A. Sees Oil, Gas and Coal Demand Peaking By 2030

For more than a century, the world’s appetite for fossil fuels has been expanding relentlessly, as humans have continued burning larger amounts of coal, oil and natural gas almost every year to power homes, cars and factories. But a remarkable shift may soon be at hand. The world’s leading energy agency now predicts that global […]

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Green Energy Casts a Shadow Over a Cherished English Landscape

Charlotte Banks lives in a house that just about anyone would envy. Hempnalls Hall, a pink structure dating to the 16th century, rises above an even older moat, dug to keep marauders away in ancient times. Now, a different type of threat looms. National Grid, Britain’s electricity system operator, proposes building a sprawling, 110-mile transmission […]

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Stocks and Bonds Have Taken Losses. Invest in Them Anyway.

This is one of those stretches when you may want to avoid looking at your investments. Performance reports for the three months that ended in September are arriving now, and they are ugly. The vast majority of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds — the vehicles used by most Americans for their investments — fell. There […]

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Russian Drone Strike Sparks Fire at Plant, Ukraine Says

Russian forces launched 40 exploding drones at Ukraine overnight, the authorities said on Saturday, sparking a big fire at a plant in central Ukraine, the latest attack on a region far from the front line. Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 30 of the slow-moving drones fired from the Russian-occupied region of Crimea, according to the […]

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Biden Administration to Offer Fewest Offshore Oil and Gas Leases in History

The Biden administration announced Friday it would lease a handful of spots in the Gulf of Mexico to oil companies for drilling over the next five years, a move that is likely to anger both climate activists and the fossil fuel industry. The administration said oil and gas companies would be able to drill in […]

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In Summer Heat, ‘Artificial Shortages’ in Texas Grid May Have Cost $8 Billion

When VJ Arizpe installed solar panels connected to batteries at his home in Houston last year, he did so to avoid the kind of power outages that had plunged much of Texas into darkness in the middle of a winter storm in February 2021. The new equipment allowed him to sell back extra power to […]

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Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Gets a Bigger Burst of Laser Energy

The Key Number: 3.88 megajoules. The experiment in December generated a whirlwind of accolades when it produced about three megajoules of energy — equivalent to about 1.5 pounds of TNT, or about 1.5 times the energy of the incoming lasers. It was the first time that a fusion reaction in a laboratory setting produced more […]

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DeSantis Slams Biden Climate Policy: ‘An Agenda to Control You’

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Wednesday unveiled an energy plan in the heart of oil country, criticizing electric vehicles and global climate agreements, promising lower fuel prices and pushing for more oil and gas development. In a policy rollout at an oil rig site in Midland — a West Texas city that derives much […]

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To Understand Clean Energy Challenges, We Went to Uzbekistan

It’s officially climate summit season. Starting on Sunday in New York, policymakers, diplomats and many others will convene for Climate Week, along with the U.N. General Assembly and several related gatherings, including our own Climate Forward event. And COP, the annual U.N.-sponsored climate meeting, is just a couple months away. Each year, the talks get […]

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