** Hurricane Helene flooding could push Appalachia utilities to rethink the region’s power grid, described by one official as a “really far-flung set of distribution lines going up into the hills and serving different communities.”
** Vice President Kamala Harris criticizes Donald Trump for attacking the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, suggesting he’s trying to leverage the disasters to his advantage.
** The crisis continues at Boeing, and the aircraft manufacturer announced Friday that it plans to lay off around 17,000 employees, or about 10% of its workforce as it faces a dismal third-quarter earnings report and ongoing damage from striking workers.
** Exxon Mobil announces it’s secured leases for 271,000 acres in waters off Texas for an offshore carbon capture project.
** Environmental groups allege in a new lawsuit that the Tennessee Valley Authority didn’t adequately assess the effects of its plans to replace a coal-fired power plant with natural gas.
** Former U.S. Naval Academy dairy farm in Maryland is on its way to becoming a solar farm as part of the Department of Defense’s goal of going net-zero by 2050.
** Total U.S. consumption of natural gas rose by 1.2% (0.8 Bcf/d) compared with the previous report week, according to data from S&P Global Commodity Insights. Natural gas consumption in the residential and commercial sector increased by 16.1% (1.5 Bcf/d) week over week.
** Summit Next Gen, a subsidiary of Iowa-based Summit Agricultural Group, has unveiled plans for the world’s largest ethanol-to-jet fuel plant. This massive 60-acre facility, set to be built at the Houston Ship Channel in Texas, aims to produce 250 million gallons of SAF per year.
World
** Volkswagen Group on Friday reported a 7% decline in third-quarter global deliveries, showing how Europe’s car industry is facing tough challenges, including weak demand from China and high production costs at home.
** Democratic Republic of Congo’s top mining official said the country is courting new investors for its world-class deposits of key metals as it looks to diversify ownership in its industry, which is currently dominated by China.
** A gloom hangs over Cognac, a small town in France that has given its name to France’s most famous brandy. The sector was on a decade-long tear until soaring inflation thumped foreign sales. Cognac exports fell over a fifth in 2023, and this year’s harvest was already threatened by disease and poor weather before Beijing announced its provisional tit-for-tat measures against the region’s top tipple.
** Thailand’s new government will restart negotiations with Cambodia to explore an offshore oil and gas field with at least $300 billion worth of reserves that the two countries have been squabbling over since the 1970s.
** China’s biggest coal miner announced the construction this week of another massive project to supply feedstock for petrochemicals makers and help clear a prospective surplus of the fossil fuel. China Energy Investment Corp. said it will spend 170 billion yuan ($24 billion) to build an integrated plant in the northwestern region of Xinjiang that will turn coal into oil products.
