Energy briefs

** The second of two new nuclear reactors in Georgia has entered commercial operation, capping a project that cost billions more and took years longer than originally projected. Georgia Power Co. and fellow owners announced the milestone Monday for Plant Vogtle’s Unit 4, which joins an earlier new reactor southeast of Augusta in splitting atoms to make carbon-free electricity.

** In the not-too-distant future, automatic emergency braking will have to come standard on all new passenger vehicles in the United States, a requirement that the government says will save hundreds of lives and prevent thousands of injuries every year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration unveiled the final version of the new regulation on Monday and called it the most significant safety rule in the past two decades.

** The first container ship has arrived at the Port of Baltimore a month after the cargo ship Dali lost power and rammed a support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, leading to the collapse of the structure into the Patapsco River and killing six construction workers.

 

World

** Four days after the US voted to sign off a long-awaited $61 billion in aid, Ukraine did the one thing that the White House has reportedly been asking it not to do: It struck another oil facility on Russian soil. Ukraine says that Wednesday’s drone attack took out about 900,000 cubic feet of Russian fuel.

** Cocoa plunged by the most ever — slumping as much as 27% in just two days — with price swings becoming more extreme as fewer investors and companies can afford to maintain trading positions.

** The EU is expected to slap tariffs on Chinese automakers following a probe into anti-competitive practices after carmakers were left in a “state of shock” by BYD’s affordable cars.

** Elon Musk’s surprise trip to Beijing on Sunday for meetings with officials including Premier Li Qiang paid immediate dividends. Tesla secured tentative approval to deploy its more advanced driver-assistance features in China, potentially boosting revenue in its second-most important market.

** Ships seeking to avoid ongoing attacks by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea area are emitting millions of additional tons of carbon, making it tougher for companies using ocean freight to reduce pollution across their supply chains. The additional fuel burned has led to approximately an extra 13.6 million tons of CO2 emissions over the past four months — equivalent to the pollution of about 9 million cars over that same period, according to a report from consultancy INVERTO, a subsidiary of Boston Consulting Group Inc.

** Ministers from the Group of Seven nations have agreed to shut down all their coal plants by 2035 at the latest, a UK minister said on Monday, in a climate policy breakthrough that could influence other countries to do the same.