RBN Energy

California faces a broad set of challenges when it comes to reducing wildfires, which have been increasingly frequent and intense over the last decade — impacting the lives of those dealing with the threat, not to mention effects on the economy and environment. Separately, the state has been working to reduce transportation-related pollution and incentivize the development and use of a wide array of alternative fuels. Yosemite Clean Energy (YCE), which announced plans for its first plant site in late 2021, has an approach it says will not only make the state a cleaner and safer place but also foster the development of new transportation fuels. In today’s RBN blog, we look at YCE’s plans to turn wood waste into renewable fuels, how its unique “Stump to Pump” approach relies on partnerships with local communities, and the green hydrogen and renewable natural gas it plans to produce at sites across California.

Supply chains are screwed up. Inflation has returned with a vengeance. And the politics of energy in the U.S. are all over the place, with demands for energy companies to do more today even as plans are being made to phase them out of existence tomorrow. This is today’s world — traditional energy markets learning to live with the impact of renewables, decarbonization and sustainability initiatives, while at the same time dealing with the aftermath of a pandemic and the consequences of a war with a totally uncertain trajectory — and it’s likely to be with us for a long time to come. That was the focus of our Spring 2022 School of Energy and it’s the subject of today’s RBN blog. Warning: Today’s blog includes a couple of blatant plugs for a newly available replay of our recent conference in Houston.

At the most basic level, carbon-capture technology is not new, but it has attracted a lot more attention in recent years amid discussions about how best to transition to a net-zero world by 2050. Efforts to ramp up carbon capture have faced a number of hurdles, however, including the difficulty in capturing some emissions at the point where they’re generated. That’s where direct air capture (DAC) — which essentially works as a large-scale air filter and can be located just about anywhere — comes into play. In today’s RBN blog, we take a closer look at the still-emerging technology and its limitations, a project in Iceland that is the largest currently in operation, and plans by Occidental Petroleum to make Texas home to the world’s largest DAC facility. 

Since the first OPEC oil embargo nearly a half-century ago — and more recently with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — energy producers and consumers alike have learned important lessons about the significance of energy commodity sourcing. It all comes down to this, really: (1) know what you’ll need going forward; (2) diversify your sources of supply, focusing on suppliers who are reliable and friendly; and (3) don’t screw up by becoming overly dependent on suppliers who could prove to be sketchy. For decades, the industry’s focus was on oil and gas — which is still critical, as Europe knows all too well. But as policymakers attempt to transition to renewables and electrification, a whole new set of commodity-supply concerns is coming to the fore. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the challenges associated with securing the key materials required to build the machinery of the energy transition.

The energy market has been in chaos for some time. Even before Russia’s horrific attack on Ukraine, the multinational push to decarbonize the global economy was slow-motion-crashing into reality. Of course, global supply shortages only got worse following the invasion and the widespread response to it. The disruptions highlight the critical need for a balanced energy policy, both in the U.S. and abroad. This became evident in Europe last year, when a heavy, early reliance on renewable energy, largely wind, left much of the continent short on fuel and scrambling for natural gas when the wind didn’t blow enough. The overall supply-demand balance caused prices to rise steadily as the global economy climbed out of its COVID-induced recession. Then the situation became more dire as embargoes on Russian crude oil and gas were planned and implemented. In the U.S., the Biden administration, eager to both “green” the economy and keep gasoline prices in check, has been giving mixed signals to E&Ps and their investors, telling them to both ramp up investments in production and expect to play a smaller and smaller role going forward. It’s a confusing world. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the current energy environment, the policy roller-coaster, challenges to the increased usage of renewables that remain unaddressed, and how the politics of decarbonization are making the ongoing energy transition a very difficult row to hoe.

Much like baling out a flooded basement with a spoon or shoveling the driveway in the middle of a snowstorm, carbon-capture projects to date have had minimal impact at best on the bigger goal of reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removing carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere. But an ExxonMobil-led project that’s taking shape in and around Houston could soon set a new mark for the scale at which carbon-capture projects operate. The plan calls for capturing, gathering, compressing and sequestering up to 50 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of CO₂ by 2030, and up to twice that much by 2040 — enough to start making a real dent in Gulf Coast CO₂ emissions. In today’s RBN blog, we take a closer look at the biggest carbon-capture project currently taking shape: ExxonMobil’s proposed Houston CCS Innovation Zone.

Even before the recent spike in crude oil and gasoline prices, the subject of a contentious House committee hearing Wednesday with executives from six large oil and natural gas companies, electric vehicles (EVs) were having a bit of a moment. From legacy brands such as BMW and General Motors to the EV startup Polestar, several automakers used their spots during February’s Super Bowl — the most-watched event on the TV calendar, where the cost for a 30-second ad went for a whopping $6.5 million — to highlight their latest EV offerings. Now, with gasoline prices about 50% higher than they were a year ago (and about 20% higher than they were on Super Bowl Sunday), EVs are getting a whole new level of attention from everyday drivers, not just Tesla fanboys, car afficionados, or the environmentally conscious. In today’s RBN blog, we look at whether the recent run-up in gasoline prices will help turn EVs into a more economical option.