A research arm of the Chinese government said it had published an atlas of deep-sea mineral deposits, highlighting Beijing’s ambitions to mine the ocean floor and underscoring its disputed claims to waters that neighboring nations consider theirs. Experts say the maps, in addition to pinpointing mineral deposits found in the deep ocean, give China’s military...
Puerto Rico’s energy strategy is undergoing a quiet but meaningful shift, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) playing a more central role in stabilizing the island’s grid. The first year of operations for the U.S.-flagged LNG carrier American Energy, operated by Crowley, signals a step toward a more structured and reliable fuel supply model. Since launching...
A memo released by the Trump administration on Tuesday detailed a goal of having a nuclear reactor on the moon’s surface by 2030, a move that furthers the United States’ quest for supremacy in space over China and Russia. In the six-page document, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy wrote that incorporating nuclear energy in...
Chinese officials have held initial talks with providers of equipment to make solar panels as they consider limiting exports of the most advanced technology to the United States, said five people with knowledge of the consultations. Such a clampdown would risk investments by U.S. firms and set back a race for space-based computing, as China,...
As the Iran war continues, oil prices keep rising. Gasoline has climbed to over $4 per gallon for the first time in four years. The ripple effects are spreading across the economy as markets that depend on affordable crude begin to absorb the disruption of roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas that normally passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Everything from airline tickets to groceries is seeing upward pressure as the prices of jet fuel, diesel, and fertilizer all rise.
While it still seems to be a long way off, Iran and Trump seem to be considering the conditions they need to make peace. As I’ve noted in past Low-Energy Fridays, peace is better for the economy than war, which destroys productive resources and erodes investor confidence. But we must also understand that the way in which this peace is achieved may impact energy markets in the long term. While any peace is generally better economically than the status quo, risks caused by the war may remain even after a deal is made.
Read more in CNBC here.
China’s monopoly on rare earth elements is not accidental. The United States, once the world leader in rare earth element production, helped create its own decline as environmental regulations and shifting industrial economics pushed production capacity offshore, allowing an increasingly adversarial nation to gain leverage over materials essential to defense systems and advanced technologies. Reasserting U.S. independence will require rebuilding our domestic supply chain and renewed coordination between government and industry.
America's energy future is often framed as a binary choice between fossil fuels and a clean energy transition. But that framing is misleading, and acting on it could worsen both our energy bills and our climate outcomes. Domestic oil and gas production remains critical to energy affordability, grid reliability, and even near-term emissions reductions.
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