** Navigator CO2 Ventures announced it will cancel its plans for a 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) pipeline across five Midwestern states that would have gathered carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and buried the gas deep underground. The Heartland Greenway project would have carried planet-warming CO2 emissions from more than 20 plants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota for permanent storage deep underground in Illinois.
** The future of Ford’s $3.5 billion EV battery plant is at risk after leadership paused construction. “We’re pausing work and limiting spending on construction on the Marshall project until we’re confident about our ability to competitively operate the plant,” Ford spokesman T.R. Reid stated.
** FERC authorized a major energy developer to move forward with a natural gas expansion project in the Pacific Northwest. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a certificate Thursday for the so-called Gas Transmission Northwest XPress Project (GTNXP), which will upgrade three existing compressor stations and increase capacity on an existing system that has transported natural gas for decades.
** New York’s state government rejected requests from a group of offshore wind energy developers who asked to renegotiate existing contracts amid rising prices and inflation.
** United Auto Workers union members who went on strike at Mercedes-supplier ZF’s plant in Alabama last month demanding higher pay and better healthcare benefits ended a nearly month-long walkout on Thursday.
** U.S. oil refiners have cranked up output of diesel, heating oil and jet fuel for winter but are struggling to turn a profit because gasoline margins have fallen over 80% since the summer driving season ended.
** Wyoming has sued the Environmental Protection Agency for not acting on its coal ash plan. Wyoming is asking a federal judge to make the Environmental Protection Agency do its job, according to a lawsuit the state filed in federal court.
World
** An easing of U.S. oil sanctions on OPEC member Venezuela is unlikely to require any policy changes by the OPEC+ producer group for the time being as a recovery in production is likely to be gradual, OPEC+ sources told Reuters.
** The world will need $7 trillion to ensure there is sufficient gas supply through 2050 as nations shift to cleaner energy sources, according to a think tank in Japan.
** Rio Tinto Group is preparing for trials of battery-powered locomotives in Australia, where it uses giant autonomous trains — the world’s largest and longest robots — to transport iron ore across the vast Outback.
** Slovakia’s president announced Thursday that she is postponing the appointment of a new Cabinet following last month’s parliamentary election because she cannot accept the nomination of a person who doesn’t believe in the threat of climate change as environment minister.
** The best option for Sweden to mitigate a power crunch in the second half of this decade is to speed up approvals for offshore wind parks, said an executive with Orsted A/S, the world’s biggest developer of those sites.
** A German state-owned company continues to ship Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) to India, as canceling the contract could cost over $10 billion in taxpayer money, Bloomberg reported on Oct. 20, citing undisclosed sources.
