** The worsening bottlenecks at the drought-stricken Panama Canal are pushing at least one US diesel shipper to sail around the tip of South America en route to Chile for the first time since 2020. The vessel Green Sky is hauling ultra-low sulfur diesel loaded at Citgo Petroleum Corp.’s Clifton Ridge terminal in Louisiana to Valparaiso, Chile.
** Kinder Morgan on Monday forecast higher 2024 earnings as the U.S. pipeline operator bets on growth in its natural gas pipelines and energy transition ventures.
** A leaked draft of Treasury Department rules for hydrogen tax credits in President Joe Biden’s climate law is drawing warnings from advocates for the fuel that they may stifle the burgeoning industry before it takes shape.
** New York almost ran out of natural gas for heating and energy production during the Christmas blizzard that swamped northern and western New York last year, according to the latest report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
** Wyoming right-wing lawmakers call out fellow Republican Gov. Mark Gordon’s plan to make the state “carbon negative” while still burning fossil fuels, raising questions about the political viability of a coal state tackling climate change.
** The Havasupai Tribe pushes back on a company’s proposal to reopen a long-idled uranium mine near the Grand Canyon, saying it could damage their water supplies and cultural sites.
** A federal grand jury indicts Sam Randazzo, the former chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, on bribery and embezzlement charges related to the ongoing HB 6 bribery scandal investigation.
** Florida’s attorney general files lawsuits against two solar companies accused of deceiving customers.
World
** Former Secretary of State and presidential candidate John Kerry is facing accusations that he broke wind during one of his patented climate change rants that he delivered in Dubai after traveling to the Emirate via a gas guzzling jet.
** Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary David Cameron, and King Charles III each took their own private jets—as did many other hypocrites world leaders—to attend the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai, where it is apparently an “open secret,” per Politico, that “the top temperature goal is mostly gone.”
** Six major oil companies each contributed tens of millions of dollars to a grant fund meant to help state-owned rivals cull the release of super-warming methane emissions, but Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. didn’t join in.
** Countries at the COP28 climate conference are considering calling for a formal phase-out of fossil fuels as part of the U.N. summit’s final deal to tackle global warming, a draft negotiating text seen on Tuesday shows.
** Global power-production from coal will peak this year as surging deployment of renewables displaces the dirtiest fossil fuel, according to research from Rystad Energy.
** Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith is promising a fight with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over new methane regualtions because her western province produces the bulk of Canada’s oil and gas. She says it would put lives at risk and forces thousands of job losses.
