** The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects that a slightly cooler summer in 2023 will lead to less demand for air conditioning than in 2022, slightly reducing overall demand for electricity this summer. In its May Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA expects that despite less electricity demand this summer, more electricity will be generated from renewable sources and from natural gas throughout 2023.
** A coalition of 11 Democratic attorneys general wrote to federal regulators Monday, urging them to take action cracking down on natural gas-powered stovetops over concerns about their impact on respiratory health.
** Air pollution from the production of fossil fuels is responsible for $77 billion in health damages across the U.S. and causes tens of thousands of adverse health impacts each year, a new study published Monday in Environmental Research: Health has found.
** The city of South Pasadena, California will have a fully electric police fleet by the beginning of 2024. The city has entered into a lease agreement with Enterprise to lease 20 Teslas for the next five years.
** A Gallup survey released in late April found that 55 percent of U.S. adults support the use of nuclear power. That’s up four percentage points from last year and reflects the highest level of public support for nuclear energy use in electricity since 2012.
** Duke Energy has begun construction on a floating solar project at its Hines Energy Complex in Bartow, Florida. The two-acre loating array at 7700 County Road 555 in Bartow will be installed starting this month on an existing 1,200-acre cooling pond, which was once a phosphate mining pit. At peak output, the array could generate enough electricity to power nearly 100 local homes.
** A 65-year-old man was arrested Tuesday in Tacoma, Washington after police said he tampered with railroad equipment, causing several train cars carrying oil to derail in the Tideflats industrial area. Tacoma Police Department said there wasn’t an oil spill as a result of the derailment.
** Months after studies suggested massive ports could be built on the Central Coast to support the offshore wind energy industry, the Port of Long Beach has released a report showing how it, instead, could be home to a wind turbine construction port. The Port of Long Beach’s 152-page conceptual report details its proposed plan to build a 400-acre pier, dubbed “Pier Wind,” to support the construction and assembly of the floating wind turbines.
World
** Chevron Corp’s renewed oil operations in Venezuela begin a new phase next month that will boost production with the goal of accelerating a plan to recover all of the $3 billion of debt owed by the OPEC member by the end of 2025, four people close to the matter said.
** A study published in Nature Energy found that there are 14,000 orphaned oil and gas wells in waters throughout the Gulf of Mexico’s waters and in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. They created a cost analysis for plugging these idle wells after collecting data on more than 80,000 wells drilled in the Gulf from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
** Britain’s wind farms generated more electricity in the first quarter of 2023 than gas for the first time, a report from Imperial College London showed on Wednesday.
** US president Joe Biden has announced a climate change crackdown on inefficient dishwashers, and experts say Britain could follow suit. In Britain, the Government has committed to reaching net zero by 2050 with new laws incoming that will ban gas boilers and polluting vehicles, along with rules dictating minimum energy efficiency standards.
** About ten activists, including one topless woman with ‘Dirty Money’ painted on her back, interrupted VW Chief Executive Oliver Blume’s speech during the company’s annual meeting in Berlin, shouting that the carmaker’s vehicles were built with forced labour and waving banners that read: ‘End Uyghur Forced Labour at VW’.
