Tag: energy

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Politics

Progressive Lawmakers to Unveil Laws on Vitality and Public Housing

Progressive Lawmakers to Unveil Legislation on Energy and Public Housing

“Public housing has been neglected, and it’s getting worse and worse, and we won’t stand up for it anymore,” said Schumer. The president’s plan is “a good start, but not enough”.

Mr Sanders, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and allies envision the proposal, which will cost between $ 119 billion and $ 172 billion over 10 years to meet the needs of their constituents, according to an estimate by the New York Times. The aim is to create thousands of maintenance and construction jobs.

“Probably our best bet would be a bill – and it should be a big bill,” Sanders said in an interview. “I think it’s easier and more efficient for us to work as hard as possible on a comprehensive infrastructure plan that includes both human infrastructure and physical infrastructure.”

Republicans who have tried in recent years to arm the Green New Deal as a tremendous federal overreach that would harm the economy have already embraced the climate and housing provisions in Mr Biden’s plan well beyond the traditional definition of infrastructure. Mr Biden is also preparing a second proposal that could focus even more on projects outside what Republicans call “real” infrastructure, bringing the total cost to $ 4 trillion.

“Republicans are not going to work with Democrats on the Green New Deal or raising taxes to pay for it,” Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso said at a news conference last month. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, has repeatedly warned that the infrastructure plan is “a Trojan horse” for Liberal priorities, while Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, Republican of House No. 2, stated last week that ” there is a lot of Green New Deal that would drive voters to turn away from the Democrats.

“I think the expansive definition of infrastructure we see in this type of Green New Deal wish-list is being challenged,” West Virginia Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito told Fox News last week. “I don’t think Americans think of infrastructure when they think of housekeeping and other things that are in this bill.”

Recognizing the Republicans’ opposition to Mr Biden’s plan and the lure of bipartisan legislation, some lawmakers have raised the possibility of passing a smaller bill first dealing with roads, bridges, and broadband with Republican votes before the Democrats go fast Use the budget vote process to bypass the filibuster and push the rest of the legislative proposals unilaterally through both chambers.

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Business

Danish vitality large Orsted pivots to onshore wind in $684 million deal

Danish energy giant Orsted pivots to onshore wind in $684 million deal

Close up of a wind turbine nacelle on a blue sky.

lupmotion | iStock | Getty Images

Orsted announced on Friday that it had entered into an agreement with Brookfield Renewable to acquire a 100% interest in the Irish and UK onshore wind business Brookfield Renewable Ireland.

Orsted said the deal would allow entry into the European onshore market. In 2014 the company, then known as DONG Energy, sold its last onshore wind activities to focus on the offshore sector.

According to Orsted, the agreement has a company valuation of 571 million euros ($ 684 million), although that number is subject to adjustments. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.

Brookfield Renewable Ireland (BRI) is headquartered in the Irish city of Cork and specializes in the development and operation of onshore wind farms.

Orsted described BRI as “an attractive portfolio” that includes 389 megawatts (MW) in operation and under construction and a development pipeline of over 1 gigawatt (GW).

“In the US we have built a strong onshore business with 4 GW in operation and under construction,” Orsted CEO Mads Nipper said in a statement.

“The European onshore wind energy market is expected to grow significantly in the coming years,” added Nipper.

He went on to say that his company’s acquisition of BRI would “provide a strong platform to expand our onshore renewable presence to Europe”.

There is a well-developed wind energy industry in Europe. According to WindEurope, 14.7 GW of wind energy capacity was installed there in 2020.

According to the industry association, 80% of these systems were onshore, with the total onshore capacity being 194 GW.

In the US, onshore capacity is more than 122 GW, according to the American Clean Power Association. China, a dominant force in wind energy, has over 278 GW of onshore capacity, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.

Capacity refers to the maximum amount installations can produce, not the amount they necessarily produce.

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Politics

Biden infrastructure plan spending on local weather change, clear power

Biden infrastructure plan spending on climate change, clean energy

Vice President Kamala Harris (2-L) and the President’s Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry (L), watch as U.S. President Joe Biden signs executive orders after speaking in the State Dining Room about combating climate change, Job creation and the restoration of academic integrity was spoken at at the White House in Washington, DC on January 27, 2021.

Almond Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Wednesday tabled a massive infrastructure proposal to transform the US economy and build a clean energy infrastructure as part of broader efforts to curb climate change.

If signed, the proposal would be seen as one of the federal government’s biggest efforts to curb the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and fuel the president’s commitment to getting the country on a path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The move, known as the American Jobs Plan, includes $ 174 billion in spending to stimulate the electric vehicle market and move away from gas-powered cars. It is proposed that all lead pipes in the country be replaced and water systems updated to ensure the safety of drinking water.

The government’s plan, which includes non-climate and infrastructure-related measures, is ambitious and could be difficult to implement, even if it passes through both chambers of Congress.

CNBC infrastructure

President Joe Biden has proposed spending more than $ 2 trillion on repairing and upgrading American infrastructure, including roads, bridges, ports, and green energy technology. Read more about CNBC’s infrastructure coverage here:

The initiatives include funding to install half a million charging stations across the country by 2030, incentives for Americans to buy electric vehicles, and money to convert factories and improve domestic supplies. Electric cars only make up about 2% of new car sales in the United States

The proposal also provides $ 100 billion in funding to upgrade the country’s power grid and make it more resilient to worsening climate catastrophes like the recent winter storm that caused widespread power outages in Texas.

As global temperatures rise, the US will update aging infrastructure like roads and bridges to be more resilient to weather events like droughts, floods and forest fires. The plan will upgrade millions of households to increase energy efficiency. Efforts are focused on low-income minority communities hardest hit by climate change.

Biden is also proposing the creation of a “Energy Efficiency and Clean Power Standard,” a mandate that requires some of US electricity to come from carbon-free sources such as wind and solar. The mandate would require the approval of Congress.

CNBC policy

Read more about CNBC’s political coverage:

The president calls on Congress to invest $ 35 billion in research and development on projects on technologies to help mitigate climate change and create jobs such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, offshore wind, and electric vehicles.

To help fossil fuel workers transition to new jobs, the plan also provides $ 16 billion to employ those workers to plug oil and gas wells and reclaim old coal mines to stem methane leaks. Another $ 10 billion would set up a “Civilian Climate Corps” to employ people to restore land.

Some environmentalists and Liberal Democrats criticized the proposal as insufficient to tackle climate change, citing Biden’s vow to spend $ 2 trillion over four years on transitioning the economy to net zero emissions.

“This is nowhere near enough,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., wrote in a tweet about the infrastructure plan.

Brett Hartl, director of government affairs at the Center for Biodiversity, said Biden’s plan was “industry-friendly” and failed to deliver on the president’s promise to cut emissions and decarbonise the electricity sector.

Other environmental groups praised Biden’s plan to promote clean energy and face the threats posed by worsening climate change disasters.

“President Biden is demonstrating today that he is committed to building a better society for all,” said Mitchell Bernard, President of the Defense Council for Natural Resources, in a statement.

“Congress must now work swiftly to turn this vision into reality by passing laws that invest in clean energy, safe drinking water, public transportation, affordable housing and much more,” said Bernard.

The administration would fund some of the spending by eliminating tax credits and subsidies for fossil fuel manufacturers. Biden plans to fund much of the plan by increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% after the Trump administration cut the levy from 35% to 21% under a tax bill in 2017.

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Business

U.S. Vitality Costs Soar After Winter Storm: Stay Inventory Market Updates

A major winter storm hit a large part of the United States on Monday, with heavy snow and cold temperatures in across the Midwest.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press

Automakers have been forced to idle factories or suspend shifts because of the winter storm that has disrupted the energy system across much of the country this week.

Ford Motor closed a plant near Kansas City, Mo., this week because of the extreme cold and a shortage of natural gas in the Midwest. The plant produces the F-150, Ford’s popular pickup truck, which is one of the industry’s best-selling vehicles.

Nissan closed its four U.S. plants on Monday and canceled the morning and afternoon shifts on Tuesday, a spokeswoman said. Two of the plants, in Canton, Miss., and Smyrna, Tenn., make cars and other two, both in Decherd, Tenn., make engines. The company is monitoring the situation to see if it can resume production Tuesday night.

General Motors said Tuesday that it was not affected by the natural gas shortage but that it was still suspending the first shift at four plants in Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky and Texas because of “the significant winter weather conditions.”

And Toyota Motor canceled the first of its two shifts at its pickup truck plant in San Antonio, Texas, because of the winter storm and energy disruptions it caused.

Managers of the electricity grid in Texas and elsewhere have had to order rolling blackouts after many power plants were forced offline because they could not get natural gas. Some wind turbines also shut down. At the same time, demand for electricity and natural gas has shot up because of the cold weather. In addition, icy conditions have made it difficult for people to get around.

“To ensure we minimize our use of natural gas that is critical to people’s homes, we decided to cancel operations for a week, beginning Saturday, Feb. 13,” a Ford spokeswoman said in a statement on Monday.

The company doesn’t plan to resume normal operations at the shuttered plant, which is in Claycomo, Mo., until Monday, Feb. 22. The plant employs about 7,300 people. Union workers will be paid 75 percent of their gross pay for the week.

The shutdowns come as Ford, G.M. and other automakers have separately had to idle plants because of a global semiconductor shortage. The chip shortage is expected to reduce the profit of automakers by billions of dollars this year.

The winter storm that battered the Midwest left businesses digging out from under piles of snow on Tuesday.Credit…Joshua A. Bickel/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated Press

The winter storm that barreled across Texas and other states this weekend has severely disrupted business across much of the country, including those that Americans are deeply reliant on for the basic necessities, like retail stores and package delivery services.

Walmart has closed 500 stores in the Midwest, according to a map that was being updated in real time on the company’s website. “The safety of our associates and customers is our top priority,” the company said in a statement.

The storm has caused delays across the vast package delivery networks that many people now rely on as shopping has shifted online.

FedEx said winter weather had caused “substantial disruptions” at its Memphis hub, which is the company’s largest center, occupying 800 acres, and is normally capable of sorting nearly half a million documents and packages an hour. FedEx added that delays were possible across the United States for Tuesday deliveries.

UPS said weather could cause delays in areas not directly hit by the storms. Packages may take longer to get from one place to another, and many delivery services have big sorting hubs in the middle of the country to serve both the east and west coasts. Two of UPS’s main air hubs are in Louisville, Ky., and Dallas, for example.

The winter storm prompted the United States Postal Service to close post offices, processing hubs and other facilities in Texas and Mississippi, according to its website. Power outages had suspended service at the main post office in Dallas and a processing office in Beaumont, which is east of Houston, near the Louisiana state line.

The storm has also affected Amazon, which operates its own large delivery network that includes planes, hubs and delivery vans. The company’s delivery locations in San Antonio, Texas, had been closed because of bad weather, it told a local TV station.

Arne Sorenson, the chief executive of Marriott International, in 2019. Credit…Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call, via Associated Press

Arne Sorenson, the president and chief executive of Marriott International, died on Monday at the age of 62. He had been undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Sorenson became the third chief executive of Marriott in 2012, and the first without the Marriott surname. Mr. Sorenson led the expansion of the company’s presence worldwide, including the $13 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in 2015.

“Arne was an exceptional executive — but more than that — he was an exceptional human being,” J.W. Marriott Jr., the company’s executive chairman, said in a statement. “Arne loved every aspect of this business and relished time spent touring our hotels and meeting associates around the world.”

In May 2019, the hotel chain announced that Mr. Sorenson learned had cancer, and earlier this month said that he would be reducing his schedule because of more demanding treatment.

When Mr. Sorenson stepped back from full-time management, the company appointed two Marriott executives, Stephanie Linnartz and Tony Capuano, to temporarily fill the role. The company expects to appoint a new chief executive within the next two weeks.

Filling a pickup truck and gas cans in Tomball, Texas, on Monday. A winter storm has disrupted energy supplies and caused widespread power outages.Credit…Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle, via Associated Press

Energy prices in the United States rose on Tuesday after a huge winter storm hit the southern and central parts of the country, with 150 million people under storm warnings. Millions of people have been left without power in freezing temperatures.

Natural gas futures for March delivery rose as much as 6.3 percent, the biggest jump since Feb. 1, when a storm hit the Northeast. Demand for natural gas has risen, but disruption from the storm means gas production has plummeted.

The energy regulator in Texas said on Saturday that it was aware local natural gas distributors “may be required to pay extraordinarily high prices in the market for natural gas, and may be subjected to other extraordinary expenses” in responding to the storm.

For oil, futures jumped more than 5 percent over the weekend as the coldest weather in three decades interrupted road transportation and some wells had to shut down. On Tuesday, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, rose 0.6 percent to $59.81 a barrel, the highest in 13 months. Futures for Brent crude, the European benchmark, fell 0.5 percent. The largest refineries in the country, including Port Arthur in Texas, closed on Monday because the weather had led to power outages across the state.

“Some producers, especially in the Permian Basin and Panhandle, are experiencing unprecedented freezing conditions which caused concerns for employee safety and affected production,” the Texas energy regulator said Monday.

Markets in the United States were closed on Monday for the Presidents’ Day holiday.

  • U.S. stocks pushed higher on Tuesday, building on recent gains as investor were optimistic that the vaccination rollout would spur an economic recovery. The S&P 500, which reached a record high last week, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were mostly unchanged by midday.

  • The Biden administration on Tuesday announced additional relief for American homeowners struggling with payments, saying the pandemic had “triggered a housing affordability crisis.”

  • The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.1 percent. In Germany, the ZEW survey of investor sentiment recorded a big jump in future expectations for the economy, but the view of the current situation worsened.

  • In Britain, the government reached its target of vaccinating 15 million people, the most vulnerable in the country, by mid-February but now the prime minister, Boris Johnson, is under increasing pressure to lay out a clear plan for the end of the long lockdown. The central bank has forecast a relatively strong economic rebound later in the year, but business leaders have warned that companies need to prepare to reopen and the recovery could be impeded if they are given enough support. The pound rose above $1.39 this week, the strongest against the U.S. dollar since early 2018.

  • Indexes in Asia rose, with the Nikkei 225 in Japan up 1.3 percent; on Monday, it climbed above 30,000 for the first time since 1990. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong closed 1.9 percent higher.

  • Softbank’s shares closed at a record high. Last week, the Japanese company recorded huge profits in its tech investment fund amid a flurry of public offerings by companies it backs.

One in five renters have fallen behind on rent and more than 10 million homeowners are behind on mortgage payments, according to the White House statement.Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced additional relief for American homeowners struggling with payments, saying the pandemic had “triggered a housing affordability crisis.”

The actions include:

  • extending a moratorium on foreclosures through June 30;

  • extending an enrollment window for mortgage payment forbearance requests until June 30; and

  • providing up to six months of additional mortgage payment forbearance for borrowers who entered forbearance on or before June 30.

On his first day in office, President Biden issued orders extending federal moratoriums on some foreclosures and evictions through the end of March. But the expiration of those protections would leave “many at risk of falling further into debt and losing their homes,” White House officials said in a statement.

One in five renters have fallen behind on rent and more than 10 million homeowners are behind on mortgage payments, according to the White House statement. People of color, who face greater hardship in the pandemic, are at greater risk of eviction and foreclosure.

Homeowners can find out who owns their mortgage by entering their address on various government websites.

The relief programs are part of a coordinated effort by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Agriculture.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, which announced last week that it invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin.Credit…Mike Blake/Reuters

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which has been rising meteorically of late, hit $50,000 on Tuesday morning, a new high, before dipping to about $49,500.

The digital currency is minting new millionaires as excitement grows around Bitcoin’s prospects for mainstream acceptance. Tesla announced last week that it invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, followed by news that institutional investors, like BNY Mellon, the oldest bank in the United States, were making the jump into Bitcoin.

Now, corporations can’t avoid the question of whether they will also invest. MicroStrategy’s chief executive, Michael Saylor, is recruiting companies to follow MicroStrategy’s path and invest in Bitcoin to guard against deflation of the dollar. But not everyone shares his certainty: Uber may take payments in crypto but won’t invest its cash in Bitcoin, the company’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said.

Celebrity investors, like Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, appear intent on cultivating mainstream crypto curiosity. Mr. Musk recently added Bitcoin to his Twitter bio, which pushed the asset’s price higher. On Monday, the Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego also added Bitcoin to his Twitter bio; he has been an enthusiast since 2013 and paid $200 for his first Bitcoin. The move follows exhortations from famous crypto fans, like Russell Okung of the Carolina Panthers National Football League team, who last month urged people on Twitter to “plant the flag and show you’re ready for the future.”

The business interest has prompted politicians to push for Bitcoin’s acceptance. Last week, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami proposed that the city pay municipal workers and accept fees for city services in Bitcoin, and the city voted to study the suggestion. Andrew Yang, a New York mayoral candidate, promised to make the Big Apple the best place for crypto businesses. Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, has been boasting about her state’s fintech-friendly regulations and is hoping that Mr. Musk accepts her invitation to bring his business there.

Bitcoin critics warn, however, that investors should be wary. “Elon Musk may be buying it, but that doesn’t mean everyone else should follow suit,” the New York University economist Nouriel Roubini said last week.

Not everyone is a fan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a mathematical statistician — an expert on randomness, probability and uncertainty — is now dumping his Bitcoin. “I’ve been getting rid of my BTC. Why? A currency is never supposed to be more volatile than what you buy and sell with it,” he recently wrote.

Niki Christoff speaking at a news conference about the anti-discrimination Equality Act in 2019 in Washington.Credit…Kevin Wolf/Associated Press for Human Rights Campaign

When Niki Christoff, a senior Salesforce executive, received an offer to join the board of a publicly traded company, she saw it as a signal that she was poised to break into a club long dominated by men. But what happened next revealed one of the biggest challenges facing companies’ efforts to diversify their boards, writes our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Many companies, like Salesforce, don’t allow employees to join external boards alongside their day jobs, and especially not those below the senior-most ranks, where women and ethnic and racial minorities tend to be better represented. When Ms. Christoff asked for permission, she was rebuffed, and when she accepted the directorship, she was fired.

Mr. Sorkin describes the obstacle this presents:

With so many employees trying to overcome barriers to promotions at their own employers, this creates a kind of systemic impediment to diversifying boardrooms.

And with companies facing growing calls from investors and society to diversify their boards, a new fault line is being exposed in corporate America: Should companies let their managers spread their wings?

Ms. Christoff is eager to bring attention to the issue. “People don’t know that these policies exist, and it’s not just Salesforce that has this policy,” she said. “It’s not uncommon to restrict board service to senior management. And so highlighting that issue to me feels important both from an equity perspective, but also from a business perspective.”

More than 10 suits echoing government antitrust cases have been filed against Google, Facebook or both in recent months.Credit…Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Private lawsuits are adding to the mounting legal pressure on Big Tech companies.

Already, more than 10 suits echoing government antitrust cases have been filed against Google, Facebook or both in recent months. Many of them lean on evidence unearthed by the government investigations, writes David McCabe for The New York Times.

If successful, the lawsuits could be costly for Facebook and Google. The companies work with millions of advertisers and publishers every year, and Google hosts apps from scores of developers, meaning there are many potential litigants. After the United States sued Microsoft for antitrust violations a generation ago, the company paid $750 million to settle with AOL, at that point the owner of the browser Netscape, which was at the core of the government’s case.

“There’s a fair amount of scrambling going on and folks trying to figure out what private suits might be successful and how to bring them,” said Joshua Davis, a professor at the University of San Francisco’s law school.

Facebook declined to comment about the lawsuits. Julie Tarallo McAlister, a spokeswoman for Google, said in a statement that the company would defend itself against the claims.

“Like other claims courts have rejected in the past, these complaints try to substitute litigation for competition on the merits,” she said.

The private suits follow similar ones from the government for a simple reason: Regulators have distinct advantages when it comes to obtaining evidence. Federal and state investigators can collect internal documents and interview executives before filing a suit. As a result, their complaints are filled with insider knowledge about the companies. Private individuals can seek that kind of evidence only after they file lawsuits.

If the government cases succeed against Google or Facebook at trial, it is likely to bolster the case for private lawsuits, experts said. Lawyers could point to those victories as evidence the company broke the law and move quickly to their primary aim: obtaining monetary damages.

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Business

Denmark needs to construct a renewable power island within the North Sea

Denmark wants to build a renewable energy island in the North Sea

The facility will be located in waters off the coast of Jutland.

ah_fotobox | iStock | Getty Images

Denmark will move ahead with its plans to build a huge man-made island in the North Sea that will act as a major renewable energy hub and cost billions of dollars to develop.

The Danish Energy Agency, which is part of the government’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities, said Thursday the project would be part of a public-private partnership, with the Danish state holding a majority stake.

The scope of the project, which will be located in waters 80 kilometers off the coast of Jutland, the large peninsula with mainland Denmark, is considerable.

In the first phase, with an output of 3 gigawatts (GW), around 200 offshore wind turbines are supplied with electricity to the hub, which is then distributed to the surrounding countries via the grid.

In the future, the hub’s capacity could be expanded to 10 GW. According to the Danish authorities, this would be enough to supply 10 million households in Europe with electricity. Depending on its final capacity, the island will cover an area between 120,000 and 460,000 square meters.

The estimated cost of building the artificial island, 10 GW capacity and the necessary transmission network is 210 billion Danish kroner (33.97 billion US dollars).

“The energy hub in the North Sea will be the largest construction project in Danish history,” said Danish climate minister Dan Jørgensen in a statement.

“It will go a long way towards realizing the enormous potential for European offshore wind and I look forward to our future collaboration with other European countries,” he added.

The project is now moving forward and the Danish climate department will start discussions with potential investors from the private sector. At the political level, the terms of the tender are negotiated, new legislation is passed and environmental impact assessments are carried out.

In addition to the artificial island, a second energy hub of 2 GW is planned for the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm.

Denmark is a pioneer when it comes to offshore wind projects. The world’s first offshore wind farm in waters near the Danish island of Lolland was commissioned in 1991 by Orsted – the company formerly known as DONG Energy. Other Danish companies like the turbine manufacturer Vestas are important players in wind energy.

Looking ahead, the European Union, of which Denmark is a part, wants its offshore wind capacity to reach 60 GW by 2030 and 300 GW by the middle of the century.

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World News

Keystone Rejection Exams Trudeau’s Balancing Act on Local weather and Vitality

Keystone Rejection Tests Trudeau’s Balancing Act on Climate and Energy

OTTAWA – One of President Biden’s first steps in taking office was to remove the approval for the Keystone XL pipeline, the long-debated project to move crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to the United States.

But Canadian officials, particularly in Alberta, the province where the pipeline originated, are not giving up anytime soon.

The nearly 1,200-mile long Keystone XL was to transport crude oil from Canada to Nebraska, where it would be connected to an existing network to deliver the crude oil to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

With the pipeline cancellation, Mr Biden took some of his first steps to reverse the legacy of the Trump administration, which revived the project after it was rejected by President Barack Obama in 2015.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has long supported the pipeline to balance his priority in fighting climate change with his support for Canada’s energy industries in Alberta and other western provinces.

“We are disappointed but acknowledge the president’s decision to keep his campaign promise for Keystone XL,” Trudeau said in a statement late Wednesday commending other decisions by Mr Biden, including a move to re-join the Paris Climate Agreement . Mr. Trudeau and his officials had for weeks urged the incoming U.S. government not to revoke the Keystone XL permit.

Days before Mr Biden’s official announcement, the Alberta Prime Minister had issued a statement promising legal action. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Jason Kenney demanded that Mr Trudeau also impose trade sanctions on the United States if he fails to convince the American President to reverse course.

“This is a blow to the Canadian and Alberta economies,” Kenney said at a news conference. “It is an insult to the United States’ most important ally and trading partner on the first day of a new administration.”

Mr. Kenney also criticized the Biden transition team for refusing to meet with Alberta officials to discuss the issue. “That’s not how you treat a friend in my books,” he said.

Canada exports around 80 percent of its oil to the US, with most of it coming from the oil sands, which along with the energy industry is vital to Alberta’s economy. Even during the current drop in oil prices, the sector still provides around 140,000 jobs, and before the collapse in oil prices, oil and gas industry royalties represented around 20 percent of Alberta’s budget.

The oil industry had pushed the development of the pipeline in hopes that a direct route to the Gulf of Mexico, where refineries are equipped to process the heavy, low-quality oil found in Canada’s inland oil sands, would eliminate shipping bottlenecks and lower prices, Andrew Leach said , an energy and environmental economist from the University of Alberta at Edmonton.

However, the pipeline project has been fiercely rejected by environmentalists, American farmers and ranchers, and indigenous groups in the United States who feared it would change and potentially damage their land.

“President Biden’s decision to reject Keystone XL on its first day heralded a new era,” said Anthony Swift, director of the Canada Project at the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that has long criticized the oil sands.

“New fossil fuel development projects are put through a kind of climate test that assesses whether these projects are in line with our international climate goals,” added Swift.

Faith Spotted Eagle, an elder of the Yankton Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and an early opponent of the pipeline, said Mr. Biden’s decision was important to Native Americans.

“I am pleased that our contract rights have been recognized,” she said. “This is a justification.”

American environmentalists had targeted the Keystone Pipeline to shut down the oil sands, which they believe is a particularly dirty source of energy. But even with Keystone’s demise, that effort seems unattainable.

In addition to the railways, there are numerous pipelines between the two countries through which Canada sends oil to American refineries. Two more Canadian pipelines for the US are currently being expanded, so production in the oil sands is likely to continue.

The question, however, said Mr Leach, is whether these other pipelines are also targets of the new US administration: is Mr Biden saying we basically don’t want cross-border pipelines, or we just don’t want this pipeline? “

One of the pipelines currently being expanded is in the American Midwest. Another connects the oil sands with a port in British Columbia that can ship refineries on the Pacific coast of the United States and that also has a branch line to Washington State. Both were attacked by protests.

There is another pipeline running from western Canada through the American Midwest that Michigan has proposed to withdraw for environmental reasons. This move could clog much of the pipeline route.

Mr Biden’s announcement to cancel the Keystone XL fulfilled a promise he had repeatedly made on the campaign trail as part of his climate change agenda, even though the president did not announce plans for the other pipelines shared by Canada and the United States.

In a statement released Wednesday prior to Mr Biden’s intervention, TC Energy, the company that owns Keystone, said it was disappointed with Mr Biden’s decision and would cease work on the pipeline pending its options check.

The termination will “result in the layoff of thousands of union workers and negatively impact industry’s pioneering commitments to use new renewable energies as well as historic equity partnerships with indigenous communities,” the company said.

Chris Bloomer, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said Keystone XL’s demise had more to do with opposition to the oil sands than with the project itself.

“It seems that regardless of the industry there is no basis for a middle ground or compromise,” he said from Calgary. “The environmentalists’ appetite to turn things off is insatiable.”

The likelihood of Mr. Kenney or TC Energy getting through litigation against Mr. Biden is slim, said Kristen van de Biezenbos, a law professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta.

Resolving challenges in American courts or through investor provisions on trade deals could take years, likely fail, and ultimately fail to restore the presidential approval required for the pipeline, she said.

And a Canadian win in court wouldn’t remove the Keystone Project’s other hurdles – legal challenges from environmental groups, regulatory barriers within states, and the adverse economic climate that has deterred investors and stalled construction.

“I am really amazed at the wisdom to pursue this further,” she said. “It would be faster to build a pipeline in Canada.”

.

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Business

How Sustainable Is the Rally in Renewable Vitality Shares?

How Sustainable Is the Rally in Renewable Energy Stocks?

“Battery prices have fallen 90 percent in the past five to eight years,” said Ms. Bowman. “Solar power coupled with battery storage is the cost-effective solution for California in moving to a cleaner grid,” she added.

Hydrogen fuel cells, which generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, have emerged as a possible short-term solution for use in trucks and shipping, says Bloom. However, such applications require costly expansion of the hydrogen gas station network, said Steve Capanna, director of US climate policy and analysis at the Environmental Defense Fund. Right now, he said, there aren’t many such stations besides “a handful in California”.

Buying stocks from renewable energy stocks now requires a certain level of confidence because they are so expensive, in part because of the low interest rates developed by the Federal Reserve that have helped propel the entire stock market higher. Fed support could be the main reason the market weathered all of the dire coronavirus economic news to continue its seemingly endless rise in valuations.

Paul Coster, a JPMorgan analyst, said the high prices in the renewable energy space are based on solid performance. “It’s not like the dot-com era,” he said. “They are real actors with real technology.” He added, “We live in this wonderful moment when virtue and selfishness coincide.”

Perhaps, thought Mr. Coster, there are still good reasons to own some of these stocks. He cited FuelCell Energy, which has negative cash flow and regularly reports quarterly profit losses. Mr Coster said investors might want to project for several years.

By 2025, it is “feasible” that FuelCell Energy would achieve earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of $ 60 million, which warrants a rich, high-growth stock valuation. Even so, the company’s shares more than doubled in the last month, and on Jan. 14, Mr. Coster warned that the stock was already “richly valued” at current prices.

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Business

How Joe Biden can speed up the transition to scrub vitality

How Joe Biden can accelerate the transition to clean energy

US President-elect Joe Biden speaks about the latest massive cyber attack against the US and other targets of the Biden administration in Wilmington, Delaware, December 22, 2020.

Leah Millis | Reuters

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, we are facing a green industrial revolution. Now is the time for President-elect Joe Biden and his brilliant team of scientific, economic and national security experts to work with the private sector to accelerate this historic transition to a low-carbon world.

With an ambitious $ 2 trillion plan to address the climate change threat more broadly than any other government, the Biden presidency could mark a turning point in federal government policy and usher in a new era for clean energy.

And the newly announced Biden environmental team will find a receptive business community to work with. In recent years, efforts to combat climate change in the United States have not been led by the federal government and federal politics – although many states and cities have continued to act independently – but by corporations and financial markets.

The private sector has increasingly focused on sustainability and climate risks, not only due to heightened climate change awareness and accountability to stakeholders, but also due to dramatic innovations that have significantly lowered the price of clean energy and catalyzed a shift in creating markets, Create financial incentives and motivate companies and institutional investors to benefit from these trends.

In fact, renewable energy is cheaper than traditional electricity generation for more than two thirds of the world. It was only last year that electricity generation from renewable sources surpassed coal in the US for the first time in modern times.

It was also a turning point for corporate climate announcements as more companies set goals for zero net emissions with clear timelines and actions.

Meanwhile, more and more investors are refusing to invest in conventional energy sources as economics become less attractive and they focus instead on clean technologies. The value of private equity investments in renewable energy projects has doubled in the past year, and in the past year and a half, venture finance for climate tech companies has increased from $ 418 million in 2013 to $ 16.1 billion -Dollar.

It was also a turning point for corporate climate announcements as more companies set goals for zero net emissions with clear timelines and actions. A number of tech companies announced significant decarbonization goals, including Google, which is committed to offsetting all the carbon it has ever emitted and being 100% renewable by 2030.

In the transportation sector, JetBlue was the first US airline to achieve CO2 neutrality for all domestic flights. In the telecommunications sector, AT&T has pledged net carbon neutrality by 2035 and introduced a new climate change analysis tool to quantify climate risks across the network. In particular, several major oil and gas companies have pledged to decarbonize their businesses significantly this year, including BP, Shell and, just last month, Equinor.

According to a recent report that analyzes progress under the Paris Agreement and finds significant private sector momentum, over 1,500 companies, with combined sales of $ 12.5 trillion, have now set net zero emissions targets.

Throughout modern history, there have been a number of turning points in the energy sector that have brought about transformative change: the industrial revolution in the 1750s and 1760s, which ushered in the rise of coal power and the use of steam; the invention of the first widespread light bulb in the 1870s, which extended the working day and improved the quality of life; and the rise of oil, which in 1964 overtook coal as the main global energy source and ushered in a new era of mass production and global transportation.

Today we are at a different turning point as we continue on the path towards a clean world. But we have to accelerate the pace and act faster and more comprehensively in order to counter the existential risks and costs of climate change.

In 2020 the private sector led the way, but the federal government still has an opportunity to get involved again. The future Biden administration should set up a Sustainable Recovery Task Force composed of business and labor leaders who can offer climate and economic policy a private sector perspective, and call a summit on better reconstruction within the first 100 days. Participate in the private sector representative. Advance a detailed climate agenda.

We believe this moment represents a historic opportunity for our new national leadership to join forces with corporations and institutional investors to take bold climate action to accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

Laura Tyson, a former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration, is a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the Board of Advisors for Angeleno Group, LLC, an energy and climate solutions investment firm . Daniel Weiss is co-founder and managing partner of the Angeleno Group.