How many times have we heard President-elect Donald Trump say: “We will drill, baby, drill.” It’s not clear that producers will fall in line. For the past six years, the US has already been the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, and produces about 13.4m barrels a day. It is not obvious that there will be a rush for new production. A Financial Times newsletter this week wrote that “producers are unlikely to follow the president’s marching orders, as muted global demand and Wall Street calls for higher returns depress outlooks for crude in the US and abroad, warn analysts.” It is also complicated by Trump’s plans to introduce high tariffs on Canada and Mexico, according to The FT newsletter: “While Trump’s plan to slap tariffs on Canadian and Mexican fuel imports, which make up a quarter of US refinery inputs, and tighten sanctions on Iran and Venezuela could also push producers to drill, analysts warn the risk of higher prices for consumers could force the administration to change its calculus.”
Still on fossil fuel production, the Guardian writes about the ‘climate bomb’ with the warning of a more than $200bn wave of new gas projects in the pipeline. “Large banks have invested $213bn into plans to build terminals that export and import gas that is chilled and shipped on ocean tankers. But a report has warned that they could be more damaging than coal power.” The report by the NGO Reclaim Finance based in Paris, says it gets worse: “In addition, LNG developers are planning 156 new LNG terminal projects worldwide to be constructed by 2030, of which 63 are export terminals and 93 import terminals.” So much for our zero carbon energy transition. We’ll be drilling until we drop at this rate.
In planning travel over the upcoming weeks, here is some useful ideas to help you along:
- Lonely Planet’s train expert provides his top 5 rail journeys in Europe for 2024.
- Much Better Adventures provides us with 10 of the best winter walks in Europe.
- For those who want to combine hiking with food and wine in Europe and Australia, check out the Hedonistic Hiking website.
- Check out the blog on how Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE is taking sustainability seriously.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), a Polish-British novelist and story writer regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language, although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, gives us an important lesson on persuasion: “He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.”
EiD welcomes your views about this week’s selection of posts on the zero-carbon energy transition:
- New briefings from the EEA on the status of the circular economy in Europe and highlighting the need for improving recycling quality
- Why net zero in aviation isn’t getting off the ground
- New report on Energy as a Service
- AI as a crucial tool in helping those in the energy industry navigate this deeply complex transition
- Reflecting on Baku
- Canada had some good words to say at COP29 but its actions don’t back them up
- New white paper on lessons learned from Danish experience to electrify industrial sites in the US
- Financiers warn net zero borrowing binges “risk fuelling boom and fust cycles”
Please send your comments on any of the posts. Please recommend EiD to your friends and colleagues.
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Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 