** Utility Dive reported total investment in hydrogen projects has grown from $390 billion in May 2022 to an expected $680 billion in May 2024, according to a new report by the Hydrogen Council, a global industry trade group. North America claimed $96 billion of that funding, according to the report.
** The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is expected to greenlight U.S. oil producer Chevron’s purchase of Hess as soon as this week, two people familiar with the matter said, leaving Exxon Mobil’s challenge to the $53 billion deal as its final hurdle. The proposed merger was first announced last October, and the FTC sent a second information request to Chevron two months later.
** The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued multiple recalls last week, including notices for nearly 450,000 General Motors vehicles, including some new-model Escalades and Tahoes, due to an inoperative low brake fluid warning.
** Across California, the companies that are trying to build charging stations for electric trucks are being told that it will take years — or even up to a decade — for them to get the electricity they need. That’s because utilities are failing to build out the grid fast enough to meet that demand.
** Californians will soon be subject to a sharp rise in punitive fines for illegal diversions of water resources, after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law this weekend. Newsom on Sunday granted his approval to A.B. 460, which will raise potential fines for those who steal water from rivers to up to $10,000 daily.
** Investors have turned bearish on oil amid fears of an OPEC+ price war and weak China oil demand. But if world GDP grows 3.3% next year, energy demand will likely surge, Bank of America says. They say the AI boom will spark data center demand, driving global energy consumption higher.
World
** Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project has less than a month left to send liquefied-gas cargoes across the Northern Sea Route toward Asia before the passage closes down for its tankers until next summer. Earlier-than-usual ice cover in the eastern Arctic will close navigation across that section of the route for non-ice class vessels from Oct. 15, according to state nuclear corporation Rosatom, which manages the channel.
** The increasingly rapid deployment of renewables around the world is still not enough to meet global goals, according to a group of political and climate leaders speaking Tuesday at the Global Renewables Summit in New York. Securing more private investments remains key to tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030, a goal set by the consensus of nearly 200 countries at last year’s UN climate summit in Dubai.
** India’s finished steel imports from China hit a seven-year high during the first five months of the 2024/25 financial year, provisional government data reviewed by Reuters showed.
** Russia’s oil and gas profits are under pressure. Before the war, Russia supplied 40% of Europe’s gas. It’s now down to 15%. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently said Moscow won’t cut natural-gas supplies to Europe because they are “decent people.” Russia’s energy sector has taken a hit from Western sanctions.
** Power cuts in Ecuador will run nationwide for 12 hours per day, up from a planned eight, the government said on Monday, citing the country’s urgent energy crisis caused by the worst drought in the Andean country’s recent history. Authorities last week said power cuts would take place across the country for up to eight hours per day but adverse weather conditions continue in areas where the country’s dams are located, Energy Minister Antonio Goncalves told journalists.
