ceo_energemsier

Yawn!!!!!

California to Build Temporary Gas Plants to Avoid Blackouts https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-19/california-to-build-temporary-gas-plants-to-avoid-blackouts How temporary is temporary ? LOL

I am not worried about the number of EV's I am worried about the power grid!!! blackouts everyday?!!!

And your self serving memory forgets to remember the urban blight in these cities. Anyways, do you need a medal for pointing out that they are Democratic cities or a chest to pin it on? LOL

Solar Power's Decade of Falling Costs Is Thrown Into Reverse (Bloomberg) -- A key selling point that made solar energy the fastest-growing power source in the world—rapidly decreasing costs—has hit a speed bump. Solar module prices have risen 18% since the start of the year after falling by 90% over the previous decade. The reversal, fueled by a quadrupling in the cost of the key raw material polysilicon, threatens to delay projects and slow uptake of solar power just as several major governments are finally throwing their weight behind it in an effort to slow climate change. “The disruption to solar hasn’t been this bad in more than a decade,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst with clean energy research group BloombergNEF. “Developers and governments are going to have to stop expecting solar to get much cheaper quickly.” BNEF slightly lowered its forecast for solar buildout this year in a report last week, citing rising prices of materials including polysilicon as one reason. Higher prices are affecting demand and may delay some large-scale projects, panel-maker Canadian Solar Inc. said on an earnings call on Thursday. In India, about 10 gigawatts of projects may be impacted, equivalent to more than a quarter of the country’s current capacity, Mint reported, citing unnamed developers. Large-scale projects in the U.S. could also get postponed, analysts at Cowen & Co. said. Rising prices might force state-owned power giants in China to push projects into next year, according to analysts at industry portal Solarzoom. The delays may be large enough to make 2021 the first year of negative growth in global solar installations in 17 years, they said. Global projects that haven’t signed price agreements with utilities that buy the power might get delayed unless the customer is willing to pay a higher rate for the electricity, said Xiaojing Sun, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. For the solar industry, the timing couldn’t be worse. Renewable energy finally has a champion in the White House and ambitious climate goals have been announced across Europe and Asia. At the center of the crisis is polysilicon, an ultra-refined form of silicon, one of the most abundant materials on Earth that’s commonly found in beach sand. As the solar industry geared up to meet an expected surge in demand for modules, makers of polysilicon were unable to keep up. Prices for the purified metalloid have touched $25.88 a kilogram, from $6.19 less than a year ago, according to PVInsights. Polysilicon prices are expected to remain strong through the end of 2022, according to Roth Capital Partners analysts including Philip Shen. And the problem isn’t limited to polysilicon. The solar industry is facing “pervasive upstream supply-chain cost challenges,” panel manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd. said in April. Solar panels are made from sand that’s heated and purified to ingots of ultra-conductive polysilicon that are sliced into razor-thin wafers, wired up into cells and then assembled into the panels that mount rooftops and cover vast fields. Prices for steel, aluminum, and copper are also up, as are freight charges. Solar-microinverter supplier Enphase Energy Inc., said it expects its shipment volumes to be constrained by semiconductor-component availability. “Downstream of polysilicon, it’s very painful,” Canadian Solar Vice President Xiong Haibo said at a conference in China, according to industry publication Solarbe. “At present, none of the downstream companies are profitable and all of them are reducing production.” Still, the hiatus in the long-term downward trend in costs is partly offset by a continual improvement in the efficiency of solar panels, said Nitin Apte, chief executive officer of Vena Energy Pte., a leading independent renewable power operator in Asia-Pacific. The company isn’t planning any delays this year at its solar projects across Japan, Taiwan, Australia and India. “I see this as a short term situation, and a few projects might see that eat into our contingencies,” Nitin said in an interview at his office in Singapore. “We’re not slowing down construction. We’re locking down orders at the best prices we can get.” Longer-term, the shortages are spurring construction of new polysilicon factories, including an announcement this month of what would be the largest facility in the world in China. “One would expect that any material that has the kind of growth that polysilicon has had will continue to have capacity injected into the system,” Vena’s Nitin said. “The challenge is timing that capacity perfectly to the growth.”

Electric vehicle market growth is a blessing for some metals — and not a big worry for oil https://www.marketwatch.com/story/electric-vehicle-market-growth-is-a-blessing-for-some-metals-and-not-a-big-worry-for-oil-11620322546

California proposes to steer new homes from gas appliances SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s energy policy and planning agency wants to transition new homes away from gas-powered appliances. The California Energy Commission released a draft building standards code on Thursday that would require new homes to be equipped with circuits and panels that support all-electric appliances for heating, cooking and drying clothes. The commission is set to adopt the updated code in August, and it would take effect on Jan. 1, 2023, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. While the code doesn’t explicitly forbid gas, the commission hopes it will lead builders to construct all-electric structures as part of a growing effort to eliminate fossil fuels from buildings, which account for about one-quarter of the state’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. "We’re encouraging the technologies of the future,” energy commissioner Andrew McAllister said.

Berkshire defends $8 billion Texas power proposal to combat blackouts (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Saturday defended its $8 billion proposal to build natural gas plants in Texas to help reduce the threat of devastating blackouts such as those in February. "When you look at the power sector (in Texas), it fundamentally let the citizens down," Greg Abel, a Berkshire vice chairman and previously chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, said at the conglomerate's annual shareholder meeting. We've gone to Texas with what we believe is a good solution," he added. "The health and welfare of Texas was at risk, and we needed to effectively have an insurance policy in place for them." Berkshire in March proposed building 10 natural gas-powered plants that would supplement the capacity of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which provides electricity to most of the state, and provide backup power in emergencies. But the proposal reportedly contemplates guaranteed payments to Berkshire, upsetting the deregulated pricing model for Texas' power market. The Dallas Morning News said Berkshire is proposing a guaranteed 9.3% rate of return. Berkshire has declined to comment. Starwood Energy Group, the investment firm, last month proposed its own competing $8 billion plan to build 11 natural gas pants in Texas. Texas suffered widespread power outages in February because of a fierce winter storm and plunging temperatures. Electricity prices soared, with some ordinary customers receiving exponentially larger monthly bills, and about 4.5 million Texans were left without power for several days. Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett added that Texas "is a terrific place to do business." Abel downplayed a reported proposal by Elon Musk, who runs electric car maker Tesla Inc, to build a giant battery that could plug into Texas' power grid and power thousands of homes during hot summers. He said Berkshire's plan could help stricken homes and businesses for several days, not merely hours like a battery.

Berkshire shareholders reject climate change, diversity proposals that Buffett opposed (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc shareholders on Saturday easily rejected proposals requiring the company run since 1965 by Warren Buffett to disclose more about its efforts to address climate change and promote diversity and inclusion in its workforce. The rejections were not a surprise, given that Buffett controls nearly one-third of Berkshire's voting power and opposed both proposals. But the climate change proposal won support from just over 25% of votes cast and the diversity proposal from 24%, suggesting greater discontent than Berkshire shareholders historically demonstrate. The votes came as a growing number of major investors, including BlackRock Inc and the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) pension plan, call for companies to promote adherence to good environmental, social and governance principles. CalPERS, along with Federated Hermes and Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, had proposed requiring Berkshire to publish annual reports about its climate change efforts. The nonprofit shareholder advocate As You Sow separately proposed annual reports on diversity, saying companies such as Berkshire benefit from a diverse workforce. Buffett doesn't dispute that both issues are important, but opposed the proposals because of Berkshire's decentralized model, where its dozens of businesses run largely without his interference so long as they perform and are managed well. "We do some other asinine things because we're required to do it, so we'll do whatever's required," Buffett said. "But to have the people at Business Wire, Dairy Queen ... make some common report, ... we don't do that stuff at Berkshire."The company has also said it is seeing "great results" from many subsidiaries addressing climate change on their own. Berkshire shareholders also re-elected all 14 directors, despite calls from Institutional Shareholder Services and Neuberger Berman to withhold votes from members of Berkshire's governance, compensation and nominating committee. The vote totals were not immediately disclosed.

Japan and China both experienced horrible power outages during this past winter, even though they state their "clean energy goals" : 1) China is not slowing down on fossil fuels of any kind, building more new coal plants as well as oil fired plants, they are shutting down old inefficient ones to build new fossil fuel plants. They use it as a propaganda to the rest of the world, we are retiring coal and oil power plants (yet keep building new ones). 2) Japan is building more gas fired power plants and also building newer/replacing oil boilers for oil fired power plants and limiting their emissions for sulphur to 0.1%

Warren Buffett: 'Chevron's not an evil company in the least' https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-chevrons-not-an-evil-company-in-the-least-193906184.html

The Price of the Stuff That Makes Everything Is Surging The prices of raw materials used to make almost everything are skyrocketing, and the upward trajectory looks set to continue as the world economy roars back to life. From steel and copper to corn and lumber, commodities started 2021 with a bang, surging to levels not seen for years. The rally threatens to raise the cost of goods from the lunchtime sandwich to gleaming skyscrapers. It’s also lit the fuse on the massive reflation trade that’s gripped markets this year and pushed up inflation expectations. With the U.S. economy pumped up on fiscal stimulus, and Europe’s economy starting to reopen as its vaccination rollout gets into gear, there’s little reason to expect a change in direction. JPMorgan Chase & Co. said this week it sees a continued rally in commodities and that the “reflation and reopening trade will continue.” On top of that, the Federal Reserve and other central banks seem calm about inflation, meaning economies could be left to run hot, which will rev up demand even more. “The most important drivers supporting commodity prices are the global economic recovery and acceleration in the reopening phase,” said Giovanni Staunovo, commodity analyst at UBS Group AG. The bank expects commodities as a whole to rise about 10% in the next year. China, a crucial source of supply and demand for raw materials, is playing a big role, particularly as the government tries to reduce production of key metals like steel and aluminum. It’s also buying up massive amounts of grains. Food prices are also being affected as poor weather in key growing nations like Brazil and France hits harvests. As just about every basic material gets rapidly more expensive, here’s some ways the rally is rippling across the globe to create winners and losers. Going Green Copper has enjoyed an unstoppable rally for more than a year thanks to pledges by governments to boost renewable energy and electric vehicle use. That’ll make all the various forms of green technology that rely on it a bit more expensive. Bigger power grids is one such case. About 1.9 million tons of copper was used to build electricity networks in 2020, according to BloombergNEF, and the price of the red metal is up more than 90% in the past year. Usage will almost double by 2050, BNEF forecasts, while demand from other low carbon technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels will also balloon. Buyers and Sellers For countries, the impact of the commodity rally depends on whether they’re an exporter or importer. For those relying heavily on exporting raw materials, the huge upswings can only be good news for public finances, especially when they’ve just been stricken by a once-in-a-century pandemic. The likes of Australia (iron ore), Chile (copper) and Indonesia (palm oil) all make huge sums from commodities. Meanwhile, countries looking to rebuild infrastructure may find their budgets buy less than they used to. President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion plan is one such case. Electricity grids, railways and refurbishing buildings are among the items on the shopping list that will use large amounts of metal. Consultancy CRU Group estimates the program will add 5 million tons of steel to the 80 million the U.S. uses each year, with similar boosts to aluminum and copper demand. Meat It’s been a tough year to be in the meat business, from devastating Covid outbreaks to the deadly pig disease that hit Germany and is roaring back in China. And as crop prices surge, farmers rearing poultry, pigs and cattle are among the first to get squeezed by the eye-watering run-up in grains. Costs for corn fed to livestock have doubled in the past year, and soybean meal is more than 40% higher. While there’s a delay before that hits the burger chain or steakhouse, there are already signs of prices creeping higher. Old Steel Mills Steel producers in Europe and America have suffered for years from low prices caused by global overcapacity. Plants struggled to make money and job security became a growing worry. Over 85,000 steel jobs were lost in the European Union between 2008 and 2019, according to industry association Eurofer. That’s all changed dramatically thanks to booming steel prices. Futures in China, by far the biggest producer, have smashed records — even outpacing gains in key ingredient iron ore — as the government took measures to curb output. That’s supercharged rallies of benchmark prices in Europe and America, where mills were already running at maximum capacity as they try to meet unexpectedly high demand. Breakfast Tables Whether you prefer latte or espresso, sweetened or plain, the key ingredients of a cup of coffee have surged. Arabica coffee futures have risen about 33% in the past year, while raw sugar has also advanced. Fancy a slice of toast? Benchmark wheat prices have hit the highest since 2013. Of course, rising commodities don’t immediately show up on grocery shelves and cafe menus. They make up just a part of the costs for retailers, which often absorb the initial increase to keep customers coming back. But there’s a limit to that margin hit, and high prices could ultimately feed through to consumers.

1 in 5 electric vehicle owners in California switched back to gas because charging their cars is a hassle, new research shows https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-5-electric-vehicle-owners-164149467.html

CA officials keep on banning new construction for natural gas use and connections!!!!!

The Ugly Truth About Renewable Power https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/The-Ugly-Truth-About-Renewable-Power.html