“Energy Matters”

Europe’s largest economy, which is already in choppy waters, appears to be headed for worse times as it rapidly loses its attractiveness as an industrial location. Germany’s sky-high energy prices, precipitated by a lack of cheap natural gas and improvident anti-nuclear and ‘green’ energy policies enacted by the left-liberal government, have had a devastating impact on the country’s industry, according to a new study.

The study, carried out by the consulting firm Deloitte with the support of the Federal Association of German Industry revealed on Tuesday, November 14th, that two-thirds of German companies surveyed had already relocated parts of their value-added chain abroad, the Berlin-based daily Die Welt reported.

The self-published grandmother saw what almost no one else did: the coming downfall of the American electrical system

Along a twist in the Connecticut River within an old-style colonial Vermont home lives Meredith Angwin, the Jewish grandmother who saw what almost no one else did: the coming downfall of the American electrical system.

Three years ago, Angwin self-published Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid, the first-ever explanation for laymen of America’s labyrinthine, abstruse power markets. Her diagnosis was simple and troubling: when America moved away from the monopoly utility system in the Nineties toward restructured electricity markets, all players were divested from the responsibility of keeping the lights on. As heavily subsidized renewables outbid reliable nuclear and coal plants in the market, the grid would become overly reliant on just-in-time natural gas and imports from neighbors for reliability.

Back in March, the Supreme Court was hearing arguments in the federal government’s appeal of an Alberta court decision that struck down Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA), often called the “No More Pipelines” law.

The Alberta Court of Appeal, which is not a particularly anti-Ottawa court, had ruled that while climate change posed an “existential threat” to the planet, the no-more-pipelines law posed “another existential threat” – to the existence of “Canada itself.”

US scientists have achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the second time since December last year, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said on Sunday.

Scientists at the California-based lab repeated the breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on 30 July that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.

Final results are still being analyzed, the spokesperson added.

Still the usual “Decades away from practical deployment.”

Elon Musk wants more power—literally.

The man behind the race to replace gasoline-fueled cars with electric ones is worried about having enough juice.

In recent days he has reiterated those concerns, predicting U.S. consumption of electricity, driven in part by battery-powered vehicles, will triple by around 2045. That followed his saying earlier this month that he anticipates an electricity shortage in two years that could stunt the energy-hungry development of artificial intelligence.

Canada must build more electricity generation in the next 25 years than it has over the last century in order to support a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, says a new report from the Public Policy Forum.

Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and shifting to emissions-free electricity to propel our cars, heat our homes and run our factories will require doubling — possibly tripling — the amount of power we make now, the federal government estimates.

“Imagine every dam, turbine, nuclear plant and solar panel across Canada and then picture a couple more next to them,” said the report, which will be published Wednesday.

Pie in the sky thinking on display.

Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith announced Friday that the province is formally seeking approvals for three more small modular nuclear reactors at its Darlington power plant, where it had already put plans in place for one unit of the novel technology.

Provincially-owned Ontario Power Generation had always contemplated building a total of four of the new units, and had begun clearing enough land for the enlarged project east of the existing Darlington nuclear plant, in Clarington, Ont., east of Toronto. But until Friday, it had been formally proceeding with just one of the new units, the country’s first.

I think SMNR’s are a great idea, better than Wind and Solar by far.

But will the regulatory burden of environmental assessments & endless consultations take a decade to complete before a shovel is even picked up as with the earlier full sized reactor announced this week?

The Opec powers are forming new alliances

Oil might be a source of power, but trying to control its price is a politically hazardous business. Led by the odd pairing of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), and Vladimir Putin, the Opec Plus oil producers’ cartel exists to maintain a price floor for its fractious members in an energy environment where oil prices have crashed three times over the past two decades. But its importance in a geopolitical world defined by Sino-American competition is beginning to extend well beyond the gyrations of oil markets. Opec Plus has remained resilient even as the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis has hardened since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the recent Chinese-brokered rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This raises questions about whether Saudi Arabia is now defecting into the anti-Washington camp.