Daily Standup Top Stories
Amazon claims to power all its operations with renewable energy. If only that were true.
When Amazon announced this month that it had achieved 100% renewable energy seven years ahead of schedule, that sounded like really good news for Virginia. Amazon owns more data centers here than anyone else, and data center […]
OPEC: Oil Is Indispensable for Global Electrification
Oil and petroleum-based products are indispensable in the process of increasing electrification and expansion of power grids globally, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said on Monday, noting that the energy mix is not a […]
CapMetro stops shift to all-electric bus fleet
Capital Metro is slamming the brakes on an ambitious goal of transitioning to an all-electric bus fleet, citing problems with the range of battery-electric buses. Austin voters were promised a transit system with exclusively electric […]
Yellen says $3 trillion is needed each year to fund climate transition
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Saturday the world’s transition to a low-carbon economy requires $3 trillion in new investment annually through 2050, and that filling the financing gap to reach that level of funding represents the […]
Taiwan Shuts Second-to-Last Nuclear Plant in Controversial Shift
Decision could make island more dependent on energy imports Taiwan aims to decommission last reactor by May next year Taiwan will shut down its second-to-last nuclear plant on Saturday in a move likely to make […]
Weak Demand in China Weighs on Middle East Oil Price Outlook
China’s maritime imports dropped to 10 million b/d at the start of the summer. The trend of weaker demand and sluggish physical activity in China impacted Middle East oil pricing. By not cutting when regional […]
Highlights of the Podcast
01:25 – Amazon claims to power all its operations with renewable energy. If only that were true.
03:56 – CapMetro stops shift to all-electric bus fleet
06:54 – Yellen says $3 trillion is needed each year to fund climate transition
10:10 – Taiwan Shuts Second-to-Last Nuclear Plant in Controversial Shift
11:41 – Weak Demand in China Weighs on Middle East Oil Price Outlook
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Stuart Turley: [00:00:15] Hello, everybody. Welcome. The energy news beat daily stand up. My name Stu Turley. President of the sandstone Group. And it is a wild week out there. Today is July 31st. And hold on. Michael’s got the evening off, so let’s take a look at the stories for tonight. Amazon claims to power all of its operations with renewable energy only. If that were true OPEC oil is indispensable for global electrification. Cap metro stops shift to all electric bus fleet. This is in Texas. You got to love it in Austin. Yellen says $3 trillion is needed each year to fund climate transition. This is an important story for a couple hidden reasons. Hang on and I’ll tell you about it. Taiwan shuts second to last nuclear plant in controversial shift. This is just plain dumb. Weak demand in China ways on Middle Eastern oil price outlook. What’s going to happen with oil. Let’s find out here in a second. [00:01:24][69.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:25] So let’s get started here with Amazon. Amazon claims to power all of its operations with renewable energy. If only that were true. I’ll tell you. Amazon announced that it achieved 100% renewable energy on seven years ahead of schedule. That sounded really good for Virginia. Amazon owns more data centers there than anyone else, and data Center Energy is driving Dominion Energy. Virginia is planned to renege on its climate commitments to keep some of its coal plants online and build expensive new gas plants and transmission lines. So let’s start with the good news. The claim that it had purchased enough renewable energy to match its energy use is likely true. So they bought it from somewhere else, and then they’re still using coal and dirty other forms of energy, but they’re claiming that they’re doing it. And so the consumers that are paying for it in their areas are losing the tax benefits as well as other things. So there’s a lot to this story that’s in here. Amazon keeps its energy demand in Virginia as secret, but it’s pretty sure it’s 110 data centers. Your use more than that. 2019 Greenpeace Peace report estimated that Amazon’s Virginia data center demand at 1700MW in operation or under construction, an amount that would call for 6800MW of solar. Amazon rejected Greenpeace’s estimate. So, hey, I don’t trust people’s numbers anymore. I don’t trust that they’re they’re highlighting out and saying, oh, by the way, we have achieved this. If you say you’re going do something like this, then do it. If Virginia, the bottom line in this article is very important. If Virginia is serious about meeting the climate change, we can’t blindly accept rosy claims from corporations whose central goal is not sustainability, but growth data centers whose energy demand isn’t met on a 24 by seven from zero carbon sources located in the same grid, are not part of the climate solution, they’re part of the problem. Well said. This is from Virginia mercury.com link is in the show notes. So that one just really kind of got me worked up a little bit. Well done. [00:03:55][150.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:56] Great article OPEC oil is indispensable for global electrification. Here’s a quote right out of this story. OPEC does not believe that energy sources are locked in a zero sum game, nor can the history of energy be reduced to a succession of energy replacement events, our guys wrote in an article posted on OPEC’s website on Monday. Quote, reality tells us that oil does not operate in isolation. Cut off from other sectors and industries rather than such is the versatility of petroleum and petroleum derived products. They play an indispensable role in a host of other sectors and industries. You couldn’t have a wind farm without thousands and thousands and thousands of gallons of fuel. Of all the other kind of byproducts that come from oil and gas. So this, again, is another fantastic article due, to put it simply, calls to halt new investment in oil and gas projects jeopardizes the production of oil products essential for the smooth functioning and expansion of the electric electricity grid, OPEC secretary general wrote. He is dead on right. It’s a dangerous come to outlook when you say,. [00:05:17][80.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:17] Hey, let’s just get rid of oil today and not have a replacement for it. Technology’s not there yet. Tap Metro in Austin, Texas stops to shift all electric bus fleet. And this one. The Austin voters were promised a transit system with exclusively electric vehicles when they authorized a tax increase in 2020 to fund the project connect, the largest transit expansion in the city’s history. They were quieter. Honestly, we thought and hope this is from CEO Dottie Watkins, cap metro CEO. Honestly, we thought and hoped that technology would progress faster than us. The biggest downside of a battery electric bus today is its range. Diesel busses can run from early in the morning until past midnight. A battery bus only runs about 8 to 10 hours before it needs to be recharged, creating tough logistical, logistical hurdles and scheduling routes. You can’t be an industrial kind of system where you’ve got to go park the equipment without having 4 or 5 times the amount of equipment in order to do that. And then when you take a look at the average miles between mechanical failures, Miss Producer, if you could bring this chart up, it’s pretty impressive. Electric cab mechanical failures. It did show that the electric busses were less likely to break down average miles, but they’re not able to do as many miles. So you have to kind of take a look at that in a little bit of a grain of salt. [00:06:53][96.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:54] So Yellen says 3 trillion is needed each year to fund climate transition. Listen to these words very carefully. Yellen says $3 trillion is needed each year to fund climate transition. What we are witnessing today is the elimination of climate crisis. In the energy transition. The energy transition is over. The energy transition is not going to happen thanks to AI. You heard that with AI with a story a little bit ago. AI is such a power hog, it is driving net zero away. And now Secretary Yellen is saying that the U.S. has to come out. Now it is saying that it has to come from investments in the business and in the government, but it affects the consumer. And it is a going to be in effect of impacting inflation and higher rates for everyone. What you’re going to see is gigantic increases in energy. What happens when that is deindustrialization and your life style changes? This article is incredibly important. Neglecting to address climate change and the loss of nature and biodiversity is not just bad environmental policy, it’s bad economic policy, Yellen said. But yet they’re willing to try to put wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico that will kill millions and millions of migratory birds, and then they’re willing to kill whales off of the coast. In the right, whales are going to be endangered. And they licensed more whales to be killed. And than we actually having right whales. So this hypocrisy is actually disgusting. Wealthy economies around the world provided a record setting $116 Billion in Climate finance for developing countries in 2022. This is a little bit of a misnomer, about 40% of it which came from multilateral development banks in D-Bus, Yellen said. The banks, which include the world Bank, which charges higher interest rates for profit, to go to renewable energy that is more expensive for the consumers than the projects actually put into place into the developing nations. So this goes to the ultimate point climate change is a scam. This is now a gigantic money grab. And this is critical. Yellen says 3 trillion is needed each year to fund the climate transition. I have not heard this before. And this frightens me that they’re now just calling it a climate transition. Buckle up. [00:10:10][195.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:10] Taiwan shed second to last nuclear plant in. Controversial shift. This one is really stupid and really frightening from this. This. It’s unbelievable. This power plant currently accounts for 5% of Taiwan’s energy use. Taiwan actually is in trouble. The China is sitting there going. We have a weak United States. If you’re going to invade, now’s the time. And you’re sitting there going. Now we’re going to look at our most stable nuclear fleet, and we’re going to cut it down so that you’re down. And, I mean, I just cannot believe that somebody is countering the narrative on nuclear, and it just does not make sense. This is Taiwan’s last reactor reactor. Mission number two is set to close in May of 2025. Both it and the reactor closing this weekend are planned for retirements after 40 years of use. They could get another 20 years out of these things very, very easily. If nuclear energy technologies can address the issues of nuclear safety and nuclear waste and accept it internationally, of course we’ll be very open to discussing the matter. Premier. I apologize if I butcher your name. Premier Chao Zhang Thai told reporters. I’m sorry. This almost is a play in political play into China’s hand. This does not seem very good for the Taiwanese people. [00:11:41][91.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:41] Let’s go to a weak demand in China. Ways on Middle Eastern oil price outlook. Here’s something that I want to give everybody shout out. And I will have his Twitter account in this article here. Give him a shout out. He is somebody you have to follow. And he is basically said there’s 2 million barrels per day that OPEC does not have in their numbers. So China’s maritime imports dropped 10 million barrels at the start of the summer. The trend of weaker demand, sluggish physical activity in China impacted Middle East oil pricing. But I still think when countries go to war, they are going to be buying everything they can in order to have their storage. I have to go look at their storage. And so when you take a look at this article, it has some great charts in here. Kuwait export blend officials selling prices in Asia compared to Arab medium doesn’t share the concerns or qualms about Saudi Arabia. After the main reason why the country exports have been slowing down. Not only is the 615,000 barrels per day refinery on all cylinders, they’re saying that Oman, the Kuwait State Oil Company, also has reached full capacity. So there’s OPEC’s got their hands full trying to herd these cats. And I truly believe that they don’t know how much is actually going out because of the dirt fleet. And I had talked to Josh young with bison interest and David Blackmon about pricing matrices and things. So when we take a look also at Iran, Iran is still has got some things rolling around in there as well Tim. [00:13:27][105.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:27] So with that please check out the Energy News Beat substack.com. Check out us. Check us out on Energy News beat.co and follow. Like subscribe share. If you are in an oil and gas trading. If you need LNG, if you need jet fuel, if you need any of that, go to energy newsbeat.com/trading desk and I will hook you up with the right folks with the right products that you need. Thanks and have an absolutely wonderful day. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. [00:13:27][0.0][789.6]
Yellen needs $3 Trillion for Climate Transition