** The head of ConocoPhillips’s Alaska operations signaled the company would walk away from an $8 billion oil project in the Arctic if the US government forced it to further scale down drilling to just two locations, saying that would no longer be economically viable.
** A survey of more than 900 auto executives by KPMG found most think only 37% of new electric car sales in the US will be electric by 2030. It shows they are not as confident in EV adoption as they once were.
** The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality approved a rule on Monday that will ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. A statement about the new rule explained that all new passenger cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in Oregon must be battery electric or plug-in hybrid electric cars.
** The U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday it will go all electric for new purchases of delivery vehicles starting in 2026.
** Hyundai prepares for construction of a $5.5 billion electric vehicle and battery factory in Georgia as it becomes the world’s third largest automaker and vies with Ford for second place in U.S. electric vehicle sales this year.
** A Navajo Nation-owned energy company sues BSNF railroad for allegedly breaching its contract to haul coal from its Powder River Basin mines to West Coast ports for export.
World
** Nearly carbon-free driving with an internal combustion engine is possible but takes work. Porsche has been investigating synthetic eFuels for many years and turned on a new plant in Chile Wednesday to start making fuel from water and carbon dioxide.
** A gas pipeline in central Russia that brings gas from Russia’s Arctic through Ukraine to Europe has been shut following a huge blast that ripped through and left three people dead and one injured, Reuters cited local officials and TASS news agency as reporting.
** Australia has only one committed hydrogen project out of a vast pipeline of proposals worth A$266 billion ($178 billion), showing the challenge in becoming a major exporter of the zero-carbon but still unproven fuel Investment in the country’s huge fossil sector, meanwhile, has continued apace, with oil and gas accounting for 55% of major resources projects in development, new government figures show.
** Germany’s economy ministry in Berlin confirmed on Tuesday that Germany won’t be buying Russian oil at all in 2023, reaffirming a pledge to halt by the end of this year. The step is to punish the Kremlin for the war in Ukraine.
** Turkey’s government and private companies are in talks with the US for purchases of small nuclear reactors, as the country looks to wean itself off coal.
** Since the European Union imposed its seaborne crude sanctions, Russian oil exports have tumbled by more than half, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
