Myanmar’s growing humanitarian crisis is fueling calls for jihad by global extremist groups and threatening to draw Middle East and Asian fighters into a new front. The Myanmar military’s crackdown on the Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority group, has emerged as a major policy dilemma for the Trump administration as it seeks to calm the… Keep reading →
Pre-construction best practices should be implemented from the earliest stages of a power project, even when putting together financial packages. In fact, an owner’s or developer’s most important decision in the entire process may rest with the selection of the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor. Experienced owner’s and lenders’ engineers can guide developers in… Keep reading →
A key indicator of global energy production and consumption growth is mega-project construction. Where are the world’s largest power plants, mining operations, oil & gas developments, utility-scale renewable energy projects or desalination plants being built? These mega-projects require a company to oversee the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) aspects of the capital intensive investments. It’s… Keep reading →
China recently surpassed the US as the world’s largest net oil importer, as the US produces more and consumes less while Chinese demand steadily increases. US net oil imports have fallen from a peak of 13 million barrels per day in October 2006 to under 6 mmb/d in December 2012, according to a Citi research note issued February 28, titled “Milestones Toward US Energy Independence – Alert: US net Oil Imports Plummet to Second Place Behind China.”
“Meanwhile, since China flipped from a net exporter to a net importer of oil in 1993, its net oil imports have risen steadily to 6.3 mmb/d in January 2013, just under last May’s peak,” the Citi analysts said in the note. Keep reading →
The energy sector has transformed Australia’s economic and political fortunes in recent years, with the robust development of coal and natural gas lending it the strength of export powerhouse even as the country’s political leaders have repeatedly stressed a focus on renewable energy and carbon pricing in response to widespread concerns about environmental strain.
Pointing out that Australia had adopted an ambitious renewable energy and carbon emissions reduction campaign since 2006, International Energy Agency Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven welcomed the recent release of the Australian government’s Energy White Paper 2012. The White Paper release comes as the government’s Climate Change Authority prepares to issue a final version of its review of the country’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) program in December, and policy supported by both documents could lend much-needed certainty for renewable energy project developers like power company AGL awaiting confirmation of earlier government targets for renewable energy deployment in Australia. Keep reading →
Energy supply will soon no longer be a commodity, exchangeable and undifferentiated. Transparency about methods of production combined with increased consumer enthusiasm for authentic ways of ensuring their habits don’t harm the planet will ensure a shift in how energy is made, consumed and tracked.
That’s the brave new world Morten Albaek envisions as he considers the “puzzle” that is the energy mix today. Albaek is Global Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Corporate Relations at Vestas, the Denmark-based world leading wind energy company, but his approach to the business of selling wind turbines to the world is based on a fundamental view of the sector’s place in history, and its development. Keep reading →
Global investment in renewable energy capacity hit $237 billion in 2011, outpacing the $223 billion invested in new fossil fuel capacity globally, according to new data prepared by Bloomberg New Energy Finance for Vestas.
Moves by corporations to invest in renewable energy has the support of consumers as well, says a company data set – the Global Consumer Wind Study – also collected for Vestas and published as part of its Energy Transparency 2012 effort. Breaking Energy has partnered with Vestas on the Energy Transparency campaign as well. Read more about it here. Keep reading →
Renewable Energy’s Five Year Plan: Building the Transparency Set Amid Hectic Growth
By Peter Gardett‘What gets measured, gets managed,’ is an long-standing cliché of business, but its truth is often self-evident when it comes to governance. In planning energy policies, regulators and businesses and even voters must have access to the right kind of data before they can even see which problems are most pressing and which solutions most viable.
The International Energy Agency’s new five-year forecast for the renewable energy sector joins the fuel-specific reports covered by its widely read oil, natural gas and coal mid-term reports. Those fossil fuels need little introduction, and in the developed countries covered by IEA and its parent organization – the OECD – production, processing, use and reserves of the traditional energy complex is very advanced and taken as fact. Keep reading →