News coming out of China indicates the country set new records in 2023 for the import of crude oil, coal, and iron ore. The revelation caught many by surprise, but analysts caution that this may not really signify a robust demand for these essential materials. Nor does it indicate that …
Read More »China Overtakes Europe in Clean Energy Tech Research
China has become a powerhouse in clean energy, and has overtaken the EU on clean technology research, a paper prepared for the European Commission has shown. “China has caught up with the EU in R&D expenditure. While Chinese R&D intensity more than doubled since 2000, EU R&D intensity grew much …
Read More »Carbon Capture: A Crucial Tool or a Costly Distraction?
While experts are sceptical about carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, it’s not stopping companies worldwide from investing heavily in the equipment as a means of decarbonisation. As oil and gas firms strive to continue pumping oil for so long as demand and national regulations permit, they must quickly find …
Read More »The Remarkable Rise of Qatar as a Diplomatic Powerhouse
Qatar remains by far the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the Middle East, and one of the top three in the world, together with the U.S. and Australia. Alongside this, though, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, it has accomplished something of a geopolitical …
Read More »EU might be Standing in the Way of China’s Energy Transition
The EU is pushing forward to protect its clean energy manufacturing from Chinese competition by adopting measures to help its EV, solar, and wind industries. The bloc has been looking for months to address its dependence on imported technologies, especially cheaper products from China, which undermine the market shares of …
Read More »Hydrogen in the Limelight at COP28
The UN’s COP28 climate talks, a mega-conference running for two weeks, are organized around daily themes. The fifth day on Tuesday focused on energy and brought out much high-level discussion of hydrogen. The high hopes for green hydrogen were apparent at last year’s COP27 summit in Egypt with a flurry …
Read More »118 Nations Commit to Triple Renewable Energy by 2030 at COP28
A total of 118 countries pledged Saturday to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 and double the progress in energy efficiency at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As part of the initiative announced …
Read More »COP28: Policymakers should Focus on Energy Tech
The Cop28 climate summit has opened in Dubai, yet it is already clear that the world is not on track to meet the climate change targets that governments set themselves in Paris in 2015. In strictly numerical terms therefore, Cop28 will be a failure, like all the climate summits that …
Read More »IEA: Oil and Gas must Let Go of Carbon Capture as a Solution
Released ahead of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) emphasised the need for oil and gas companies to let go of the “illusion” that carbon capture technology is a solution to climate change and invest more in clean energy. “The Oil and …
Read More »Is Ocean Thermal Energy the Future of Renewable Power?
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is the oldest renewable energy technology you’ve never heard of. The idea for the technology, which exploits the differing temperatures in different layers of ocean water to create energy, is almost 150 years old, but is only now gaining traction for practical application. While OTEC …
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