UK Subsidies To Fossil Fuel Producers Far Exceed Renewables

By Michael Kern - Mar 13, 2023

Fossil fuels received £20bn more UK support than renewables since 2015, according to new research commissioned by Liberal Democrats.

The UK government has given £80bn in support to fossil fuel producers, surpassing the £60bn it has given to renewables. While fossil fuels were receiving this greater investment, renewable energy was not far behind, with 2020 being the first year when support for renewables exceeded that of fossils.

Despite the uptick, however, 2021 saw a sharp increase in financial aid provided to fossil fuel companies, rising from £1bn in 2020 to nearly £2bn. This is a 10.7% increase compared with just a 0.01% rise for renewable energy.

Analysis by the House of Commons library also uncovered that one-fifth of the money given directly to fossil fuel businesses supported new extraction and mining projects – showing that there is a need for more stringent action against this industry if we are to meet our net zero targets. 

In response, politicians have called on the government to put net zero at the heart of all policy decisions and allocate funds away from these companies to help expedite clean measures such as renewable energy generation.

Wera Hobhouse, climate and energy spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, said: “It's extremely worrying that the Conservative government have received so much money from taxpayers as well as failing to enforce proper taxes on oil and gas giants’ record profit,” Adding, “The COVID-19 crisis could have been used as an opportunity for long-term investments into renewables, yet these announcements show that the current administration failed grasping that chance”

Hobhouse believes her party would bring about radical change if elected into power, ending new listings of fossil fuel companies on the London Stock Exchange and requiring existing businesses to declare their plans towards transitioning towards net zero emissions amongst other actions.

Shell made £32bn while BP pulled in £23bn last year, but their investments into renewable energies paled significantly in comparison; Shell invested only 10% of what it placed into oil and gas projects into its green portfolio, while BP reduced its ambition for emission-cutting targets from 35-40% by 2030 down to 20-30%.

Norway’s Oil Fund Held Over $260M In Failed SVB Banking Group

By Charles Kennedy - Mar 13, 2023

Norway’s oil fund held over $263 million in Signature Bank and SVB Financial Group, the owner of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which failed spectacularly over the weekend, sparking government intervention. 

MarketWatch reports that the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund (SWF) held around $263 million in SVB Financial Group and Signature Bank, based on last week’s valuations. 

"This is the biggest U.S. bank collapse since the financial crisis and we are closely monitoring the situation in the market," Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages the SWF, said in an emailed statement to MarketWatch. 

Both Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank have now been taken over by the federal authorities. 

SVB, the go-to lender for tech startups backed by venture capitalists, failed dramatically on Friday, with shares plunging 60% before the SEC halted trading. On Wednesday, the bank announced a massive capital raise, saying it would sell $2.25 billion in new shares to fix the balance sheet. That spooked investors, who feared the high share of uninsured deposits, creating a panic and a run on the bank. Shares tanked on Thursday, leading to an FDIC takeover on Friday. 

On Sunday, Washington launched emergency measures to avoid the contagion spreading into a wider financial crisis. The Biden administration pledged that banks will bear the losses, not taxpayers. 

The failure of these regional banks has sparked fears of a contagion spreading and leading to another financial crisis on the level of the Lehman Brothers collapse. Those fears have led to a drop in oil prices on Monday, and a battered Dow. 

Oil prices plunged as much as 5% before the opening bell on Monday, retracing somewhat by the early afternoon. As of 1:25 p.m. EST on Monday, both Brent and WTI were trading down 1.86%. 

Chinese Oil Drillers Set New Asian Depth Record

By Charles Kennedy - Mar 14, 2023

Oil drillers in China set a new record for well depth, drilling 9,396 meters into the ground for what has become the deepest oil well in Asia, Chinese media have reported.

The record well is part of a new phase in the development of an oil field in the Taklamakan desert, the biggest one in China. The Tarim field can now become a benchmark for other field development in the country, the People’s Daily noted in a report on the news.

The Tarim oil field sports some of the deepest wells in China, with 72 of them more than 8,000 meters deep and more than 1,600 wells with depths of over 6,000 meters. The so-called ultradeep wells are part of efforts in China’s crude oil industry to boost local oil and gas production to reduce the country’s still overwhelming dependence on imports.

Last year, China produced 204.7 million tons of crude one, an increase of 2.9 percent on the year, which was roughly equal to 4.11 million barrels daily. Imports, however, were more than twice that, at a total 508.3 million tons, or about 10.2 million barrels daily.

Because of its dependence on imports, China has become the single price swing factor among consuming nations, with doubts and hopes about its oil demand this year moving oil prices most of the time since Beijing announced the end of its zero-Covid policy.

This year, analysts expect China to import a record amount of crude oil thanks to new refineries coming online and travel rebounding after last year’s lockdowns. The consensus demand growth forecast of Wood Mackenzie, S&P Global, Energy Aspects, and FGE is between 500,000 bpd and 1 million bpd. This would push total imports to up to 11.8 million barrels daily, beating the record set last year, despite the lockdowns.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

ING Further Restricts Lending To The Oil And Gas Industry

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Mar 14, 2023, 

ING is further restricting financing to the oil and gas industry, reducing the volume of traded oil and gas it finances and no longer financing midstream infrastructure for new oil and gas fields, the Netherlands-based bank said on Tuesday.  

Last year, ING said it would aim to grow new financing of renewable energy by 50% by year-end 2025 and would no longer provide dedicated finance to new oil and gas fields.

Under the policy from last year, ING doesn’t provide dedicated upstream finance – lending or capital markets – for oil and gas fields approved for development after December 31, 2021.

Now the bank is also expanding that approach to midstream oil and gas, it said today, adding that it would respect the existing commitments to its clients.

Still, ING is not outright stopping financing for all fossil fuels, because “There simply isn’t enough green energy yet, and even in the future a net-zero world will not equal a completely fossil-free world.”

Financing fossil fuels is a “balancing act,” ING said in today’s statement, noting that “We want to balance our climate action with our societal role to ensure energy remains affordable and available for people and companies.”

Many banks have moved to restrict financing to fossil fuels over the past year, but ING has one of the most ambitious policies in lending to oil and gas.

Early this month, Deutsche Bank said it would start implementing a stricter policy for coal financing as part of additional measures to reinforce its net-zero commitment, adding that it would also update its oil and gas policy at some point. Deutsche Bank could announce some updates on its oil and gas lending policy in its Non-Financial Report which will be published on March 17, 2023.

Last month, Barclays said it would no longer provide financing to oil sands companies or oil sands projects and tightened conditions for thermal coal lending in an updated policy, which, however, fell short of announcing overall pledges or targets in funding oil and gas.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Can Double-Sided Solar Panels Help Meet Global Energy Demands?

By Brian Westenhaus - Mar 12, 2023

• The SUNLAB team at the University of Ottawa has developed a new method for measuring solar energy produced by bifacial solar panels.
• 
  
• This methodology takes into account external effects of ground cover such as snow, grass and soil, providing consistent testing for bifacial panel performance under varying illumination conditions.
• 
  
• Implementing this method into international standards can enable accurate comparisons of bifacial panel technologies, application-specific optimization and standardization of bifacial panel power ratings.

University of Ottawa’s laboratory in photonics and renewable energy has developed a new method for measuring the solar energy produced by bifacial solar panels. The double-sided solar technology is expected to meet increased global energy demands into the future.

Published in the journal Joule, this study from the SUNLAB team in the Faculties of Engineering and Science proposes a characterization method that will improve the measurement of bifacial panels indoors by considering external effects of ground cover such as snow, grass and soil. This will provide a way to consistently test bifacial solar panel performance indoors that accurately represents how the panels will perform outdoors.

With bifacial photovoltaics expected to provide over 16% of global energy demand by 2050, the SUNLAB’s methodology will improve international device measurement standards which currently do not distinguish between ground cover.

Erin Tonita, lead author and a physics PhD student studying under Professor Karin Hinzer, whose research group develops new ways to harness the sun’s energy explained, “Our proposed characterization method, the scaled rear irradiance method, is an improved method for indoor-measuring and modeling of bifacial devices that is representative of outdoor environmental conditions. Incorporating this new method into future bifacial standards would provide a consistent methodology for testing bifacial panel performance under ground conditions including snow, grass, and soil, corresponding to globally varying illumination conditions.”

Photovoltaics is the study of converting solar energy into electricity through semiconducting materials, such as silicon. In bifacial solar panels, the semiconducting material is wedged between two sheets of glass to allow for sunlight collection on both sides, with one side typically angled towards the sun and the other side angled towards the ground. The additional light collected by bifacial solar panels on the rear-side offers an advantage over traditional solar panels, with manufacturers touting up to a 30% increase in production compared to traditional solar panels. Bifacial solar panels are also more durable than traditional panels and can produce power for over 30 years.

“Implementation of this method into international standards for such panels can enable predictions of outdoor bifacial panel performance to within 2% absolute,” said Tonita, who expects the benefits of this methodology to include:

• Allowing comparisons between existing and emerging bifacial technologies.
• Enhancing performance via ground cover specific design optimization.
• Increasing solar panel deployments in non-traditional markets.
• Reducing investment risk in bifacial panel deployments.
• Improving bifacial panel manufacture datasheets.

Professor Hinzer, founder of SUNLAB and the University Research Chair in Photonic Devices for Energy and a Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science said, “This method is of particular importance as renewable energy penetration increases towards a net-zero world, with bifacial photovoltaics projected to contribute over 16% of the global energy supply by 2050, or around 30,000 TWh annually.”

“This will extend current International Electrochemical Commission standards for bifacial solar panel measurements, enabling accurate comparisons of bifacial panel technologies, application-specific optimization, and the standardization of bifacial panel power ratings,” adds Hinzer, whose SUNLAB researchers worked in collaboration with Arizona State University for the study,” she added.

Housed at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Research in Photonics, SUNLAB is the premier Canadian modeling and characterization laboratory for next generation bifacial, multi-junction, and concentrator solar devices.

***

This likely makes a great deal of sense to our northern neighbors. With an oblique angle to the solar radiation and much more of the year with lighter ground cover such as snow plus a more robust build and a very long lifespan the attractions must size the attention with a bit of relief.

The attributes are quite encouraging and may well find their way further south to a warmer welcome.

By Brian Westenhaus for New Energy and Fuel

Russia Can’t Afford To Continue Exporting Arms

By RFE/RL staff - Mar 13, 2023

• Russian arms exports have collapse in recent years. 
• 
  
• The Kremlin’s need to conserve weaponry for its war in Ukraine, along with western sanctions are crushing its ability to sell arms.
• 
  
• The United States has increased arms sales, with its share rising to 40%.

Russia’s share of global arms exports declined sharply in the most recent five-year period, as Western sanctions against Moscow and the Kremlin's own need to conserve weaponry for its ongoing war effort in Ukraine limited sales abroad, new data from an influential research group showed.

Russia’s share of global arms exports declined from 22 percent in the 2013-17 period to 16 percent in 2018-22, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published on March 13.

Meanwhile, the United States remained the global leader in arms exports, with its share rising to 40 percent from 33 percent in the same five-year period.

"It is likely that the invasion of Ukraine will further limit Russia's arms exports," said Pieter Wezeman, a senior SIPRI researcher.

“This is because Russia will prioritize supplying its armed forces, and demand from other states will remain low due to trade sanctions on Russia and increasing pressure from the U.S.A. and its allies not to buy Russian arms,” he added.

SIPRI noted that arms exports worldwide have long been dominated by the United States and Russia, with the two countries ranking first and second over the past three decades.

But Russia’s gap over France, the third-biggest exporter, narrowed, with Paris’s share rising to 11 percent from 7.1 percent.

"France is gaining a bigger share of the global arms market as Russian arms exports decline, as seen in India, for example," Wezeman said. “This seems likely to continue, as by the end of 2022, France had far more outstanding orders for arms exports than Russia.”

U.S. arms exports rose 14 percent from the 2013-17 period to 2018-22, while Russia’s exports tumbled 31 percent. France’s exports rose 44 percent, mainly to states in Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East.

India received 30 percent of France’s arms in the recent five-year period, surpassing the United States as the second-largest supplier of weaponry to New Delhi.

Russian remained the largest supplier to India of arms exports and managed to increase sales to two large nations -- China by 39 percent and Egypt by 44 percent over the period.

Ukraine became the third-largest arms importer globally in 2022 as Kyiv continues to battle against the full-scale invasion by Russian forces, a major change from the nation’s actions over previous decades.

“From 1991 until the end of 2021, Ukraine imported few major arms,” the report said. “As a result of military aid from the U.S.A. and many European states following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine became the third-biggest importer of major arms during 2022 [after Qatar and India].”

It said Ukraine accounted for 2 percent of global arms imports in the five-year period.

European NATO nations hiked their arms imports 65 percent “as they sought to strengthen their arsenals in response to a perceived heightened threat from Russia,” the report said.

“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, faster,” Wezeman added.

The European increase came as the global level of international arms transfers dipped 5.1 percent over the five-year period.

SIPRI, an independent international institute focusing on research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament, was established in 1966.

By RFE/RL

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