** Alaska’s looming natural gas shortage is getting increased attention this week along with more talk about negative impacts that might occur as gas supply falls in the coming years. On Tuesday, Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson announced that he formed a coalition of Southcentral Alaska mayors to study solutions to the potential shortage.
** Ovintiv’s Board of Directors member Katherine L. Minyard plans to retire as a Director effective December 31, 2023.
** California’s risk of power shortfalls and blackouts has fallen as more renewable energy and batteries are added to its electric grid, while such threats in New York rose thanks to higher electricity demand and new restrictions on gas-fired power plants, industry regulators said.
** High-stakes Treasury Department guidance for claiming hydrogen production tax credits under US President Joe Biden’s climate law has drawn the ire of Senator Joe Manchin, who said the “horrible” rules will make it too hard to qualify.
** EPA confirms BP-operated Olympic Pipeline vault spilled 25,000+ gallons of gasoline into Washington waters.
** General Motors CEO Mary Barra said Wednesday the Detroit automaker still plans on moving to all electric vehicle sales by 2035 even as it has recently delayed some EV production.
** With less than three weeks before California’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule is set to take effect, the state is seeking a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency that would end any questions about whether the state can implement it.
** U.S. energy experts heavily criticized the United Nations’ sweeping agreement Wednesday to completely end fossil fuel reliance across the world, arguing that the pact would only serve to harm American national and energy security. “This joke of an agreement really only has two goals: Allow Joe Biden to continue his war on American energy and ensure these elitists have something to do before next year’s COP29 exclusive junket,” Power the Future founder and Executive Director Daniel Turner said.
World
** Summer air temperatures in the Arctic were the highest ever recorded this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed in its annual report on the region.
** Ecologist Tomas Crowther,the former chief scientific adviser for the UN’s Trillion Trees Campaign was at the COP28 in Dubai, urging environmental ministers to stop planting so many trees. Mass plantations are not the environmental solution they’re purported to be, Crowther argued when he took the floor on December 9 for one of the summit’s “Nature Day” events.
** Russia’s weekly oil shipments hit a five-month-high, according to Bloomberg shipping data. The nation exported 3.76 million barrels of crude a day last week.
** Slowing demand growth and rising US crude production will make it more difficult for OPEC+ to continue to prop up prices, the IEA said on Thursday.
** A Chinese chip designer, part-owned by the country’s top sanctioned chipmaker, is purchasing U.S. software and has American financial backing, relationships that underscore the difficulty Washington faces applying new rules meant to block American support for Beijing’s semiconductor industry.
