** A U.S. judge has ordered Canadian energy company Enbridge to shutter portions of an oil pipeline that runs through tribal land in Wisconsin within three years and to pay the tribe nearly $5.2 million for trespassing plus a portion of its profits until the shutdown is completed.
** The U.S. electric power system is headed for “potentially catastrophic consequences” as America’s dispatchable power plants are retiring “far too quickly” and in quantities that “threaten our ability to keep the lights on.” That was the chilling conclusion of a hearing last week before the House Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security.
** The Permian Basin has survived and prospered as a worldwide energy hub and it will keep doing so as it sets production records and cuts greenhouse gas emissions. That’s according to the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, which just published a treatise on the Basin’s historic and future importance.
** South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem testified on Capitol Hill Thursday in favor of Congress preventing the Bureau of Land Management from enforcing a new proposed rule concerning conservation efforts on public lands. The second-term Republican governor, joined by Wyoming Republican Governor Mark Gordon, told the House Natural Resources Committee the proposed rule would devastate public land management.
** Iowa regulators plan to hold a hearing beginning Aug. 22 in Fort Dodge on Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion proposal to build a roughly 680-mile carbon capture pipeline across Iowa, according to an order released Friday.
** Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the US must take steps to cut into China’s advantage in batteries used to power electric vehicles, saying building the refining capacity for key materials is “addressable.”
World
** The head of the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched an angry tirade against fossil fuel companies Thursday, accusing them of betraying future generations and undermining efforts to phase out a product he called “incompatible with human survival.”
** Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, Goldman’s global head of commodities research Jeff Currie predicts that oil prices could climb back above $100 a barrel this year. The analyst sees rising demand for oil from China. Meanwhile, sanctions against Russia will likely reduce the country’s oil exports.
** Huge price swings caused by a series of small outages at gas facilities in Norway and the planned shutdown of a key production site in the Netherlands have provided a glimpse of how fragile the market is to any threat of disruption to the region’s supply.
** Germany’s economy minister welcomed a deal Friday among European Union countries to increase by more than a third the bloc’s renewable energy target for 2030. Representatives of the 27 member states approved a package raising the current goal of 32% to 45% by 2030. About 22% of the EU’s total energy consumption came from renewables in 2021, meaning the new target will double the amount in less than a decade.