** Oil company executives who backed Trump’s campaign say they do not actually want to “drill, baby, drill,” but to pursue policies to speed up pipelines and export projects to create more global demand for their products.
** Hyundai Motor North America announced it will recall more than 42,000 vehicles due to a wiring issue that can cause the automobiles to roll away, according to a notice issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Wednesday.
** The planned reopening of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant is praised as a boon for Pennsylvania and a boost for AI, but it is loathed by residents still haunted by a near-catastrophic meltdown there in 1979.
** The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power tentatively agrees to pay low-income neighborhood’s residents $59.9 million to settle allegations the utility covered up a gas plant’s methane leaks for years.
** A Western public lands scholar says President-elect Trump’s pick for interior secretary is a “credible nominee,” not a “right-wing radical” who would dismantle the agency and allow unfettered drilling and mining.
World
** Ukrainian drones hit a fuel and energy facility in the Russian region of Kaluga, a source in Ukrainian military intelligence said Monday, in Kyiv’s latest attack on Moscow’s energy sites.
** Toyota Motor Corporation recently invested $500 million to help support the future of electric air taxi travel. In a recent funding round, Toyota pledged a half-billion to Joby Aviation, a leading aviation startup specializing in electric vertical takeoff and landing — or eVTOL — aircraft.
** Rivian and Volkswagen unveiled a joint venture last week, named Rivian and VW Group Technology, LLC, which officially launched on Wednesday. Volkswagen is investing $5.8 billion in Rivian to leverage the startup’s expertise in vehicle software and electrical architecture technologies.
** French oil major TotalEnergies halted on Monday investments into Adani Group, after the Indian ports-to-power conglomerate was engulfed in a crisis over an alleged multi-million-dollar bribery scheme.
** The failure of UN climate negotiations to double down on a global pledge to move away from planet-heating fossil fuels on Sunday was decried by experts as a “worrying” setback to global progress on curbing warming. Nearly 200 nations spent much of COP29 in Azerbaijan locking horns over a tough-fought finance pact that was finally approved in the early hours of Sunday.