Fossil Fuels

The U.S. Department of Energy will announce on Tuesday that scientists at a national lab have made a breakthrough on fusion energy, the process that powers the sun and stars that one day could provide a cheap source of electricity, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have achieved a net energy gain for the first time, in a fusion experiment using lasers, one of the people said. The FT first reported the experiment.

U.S. government scientists have recently managed to make significant progress toward successfully utilizing fusion energy, according to The Financial Times.

World leaders have reached a historic deal to give money to developing nations facing the effects of climate change.

The creation of a fund for "loss and damage" is seen as a breakthrough, but previous promises of payments are still to be met.

What do countries want money for?

Money for climate action broadly falls into three buckets:

Loss and damage: This money is to help developing countries recover from the effects of climate change they are already suffering.

Liberals and conservatives are criticizing a U.N.-backed deal supported by the Biden administration for richer nations to pay reparations to poorer countries for the impacts of climate change.

Attendees of the COP27 climate summit held in Egypt went into overtime last weekend to establish a global “loss and damage” fund. The historic initiative calls for wealthier nations like the U.S. and its allies in Europe to compensate poorer nations that have been most affected by climate change but are among the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases. 

The world has failed to reach an agreement to phase out fossil fuels after marathon UN climate talks were “stonewalled” by a number of oil-producing nations.

Negotiators from nearly 200 countries at the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt took the historic step of agreeing to set up a “loss and damage” fund meant to help vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters and agreed the globe needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half by 2030.

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC oil producers are discussing an output increase, the group’s delegates said, a move that could help heal a rift with the Biden administration and keep energy flowing amid new attempts to blunt Russia’s oil industry over the Ukraine war.

An Adele song blasted from a stereo. Workers put up a fence near a massive heat exchanger and other equipment awaiting assembly here in the Nevada desert. After about a decade of grinding its way through the federal permitting process, Ormat, a geothermal company, was building a new power plant in Dixie Valley to produce renewable energy.

The United Nations Environmental Programme is calling for an “urgent system-wide transformation” to avoid climate disaster.

Reinsurer AXIS Capital (AXS.N) said it would refuse to underwrite energy, mining and other projects that did not have the backing of local indigenous communities, in a move welcomed by campaigners as setting a new industry standard.

The decision follows years of protests from communities, particularly in the developing world, that argue their voice is often ignored when banks, insurers and investors pursue projects that can negatively impact their lives.

The impact of a new "anti-woke" Texas law designed to protect fossil fuel companies is about to be tested after state agencies reported their holdings in BlackRock Inc and other firms that have been censured by State Comptroller Glenn Hegar.

The new law would have agencies divest from the stocks and investment products of financial companies Hegar, a Republican, identified in August as boycotting energy industry players. The law also contained many carve-outs and allowances for continued business such as for fiduciary obligations.