Headlines of other energy stories

** U.S. President Joe Biden’s pledges to slash emissions from farming and to end American hunger by 2030 may be harder to realize now that Republicans flipped the House of Representatives with a thin majority. Biden’s Democrats, who retain control of the Senate, will start negotiating in the coming months with Republican House leaders over a massive farm spending bill passed every five years that funds U.S. public food benefits and farm commodity programs.

** An estimate of oil and gas mineral rights owned by North Dakota pegs their value at $2.8 billion, an 18% increase from last year, according to an appraisal released Thursday to the state Land Board.

** A powerful coalition of industry interests paid for a peer-reviewed study on the benefits of hydrogen as an energy source, the Boston Globe reported in an article published Wednesday. The study neglected to mention the significant involvement of fossil fuel players in drafting the text.

** The United States aims to only sell and produce zero-emissions medium- and heavy-duty vehicles like school buses and tractor trailers by 2040, the U.S. energy secretary agreed at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt on Thursday.

** Heating oil costs for U.S. households rose by 65% in October compared to the same month last year, due to depleted stocks furthered by low imports and production constraints, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday. The EIA’s weekly Heating Oil and Propane Update showed heating oil prices climbed to a record high of $5.9 per gallon in the week ending Nov. 7.

** California announced sweeping plans to cease all net carbon emissions before midcentury. The ambitious new net-zero plan aims to cut oil usage almost entirely by 2045 and greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent in the world’s fourth-largest economy, according to a state fact sheet.

** The White House announced through the Department of Energy (DOE) on Friday that it is soliciting grant applications for $13 billion in new financing under the bipartisan infrastructure bill for the expansion and modernization of the U.S. electric grid.

World

** The Nord Stream pipelines carrying vital gas from Russia to Europe were blown up in an act of “gross sabotage,” a Swedish investigation concluded on Friday. Sweden’s Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that that its investigators found “traces of explosives” on several “foreign objects” found at the site under the Baltic Sea, which it considers a crime scene.

** A company with an office in Houston and another owned by two American citizens appear to be helping Venezuela bypass U.S. sanctions and quietly transport millions in petroleum products aboard an Iranian-built tanker, The Associated Press has learned.

** The world’s largest crude oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, has started to slash its crude exports after OPEC+ is now reducing its overall target production by 2 million barrels per day (bpd). Initial tracking and estimates suggest that so far in November, Saudi Arabia has reduced its crude oil exports by more than 400,000 bpd.

** By the midpoint of the two-week marathon of negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, it has become clear that the most difficult tension to resolve is between developed nations — most of all the United States — and their poorer counterparts over compensation for the effects of climate change.