Energy briefs

** Just a few weeks after the Department of Energy’s Inspector General  issued a report urging the agency to halt all loans and loan guarantees from the Loans Program Office until it could ensure that it is complying with “conflicts of interest regulations and enforcing conflict of interest contractual obligations,” the LPO last week gave loan guarantees worth $7.2 billion to EV maker Rivian and Plug Power.  Rivian got a $6.57 billion guarantee, and Plug received a $1.66 billion guarantee.

** Chevron Corporation announced a total contribution of $1 million to the California Fire Foundation, American National Red Cross, and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Small Business Disaster Recovery Fund to support relief efforts for wildfires in California.

** The booming solar industry has found an unlikely mascot in sheep as large-scale solar farms crop up across the U.S. and in the plain fields of Texas. One 4,000-acre solar farm outside of Austin, Texas uses 3,000 sheep to manage the grass.

** Experts from the University of Houston who are part of an international team of scientists have developed an impressive component that can boost sodium-ion battery performance by 15%. The sodium superionic conductors are aptly named, as they let sodium ions move smoothly as the pack charges and discharges, according to a news release from the Houston lab.

** One of the world’s largest battery storage facilities — Vistra Corp’s 3000-megawatt in Moss Landing, south of San Francisco — continues to be on fire as of Friday, a day after it went up in flames. The blaze, whose cause remains under investigation, is expected to remain contained to the building.

** Texas regulators approve a $137 million grid resilience plan by Entergy aimed at reducing outage times in Southeast Texas.

** The U.S. House passes legislation to require transparency around Tennessee Valley Authority salaries, which have been secret since a 1995 law.

World

** Researchers at the University of Oxford have achieved a significant advancement in the field of green hydrogen production. Their innovative approach involves using bio-engineered bacteria termed “hydrogen nanoreactors” to create hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight.

** Hot on the heels of uncovering a series of massive mineral deposits, China has just discovered a new enormous rare earth deposit in Honghe, located in Yunnan province. According to Chinese media sources, the new deposits could yield over 1.15 million metric tons of resources, significantly boosting the country’s domestic industry.

** Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast will enter the Indian market with two premium electric SUVs, taking on homegrown rival Mahindra & Mahindra and China’s BYD, which already has a presence in the world’s third largest car market.

** Chinese automotive company BYD Auto has unveiled that world’s largest vehicle carrier which can ferry up to 9,200 cars over water. The vessel, dubbed ‘BYD Shenzhen’, has been named after the town in which the company is headquartered. It recently officially undocked from Yangzhou port, located northwest of Shanghai.

** -A Ukrainian drone attack triggered a fire late on Friday in Russia’s Kaluga region south of Moscow, and social media sites showed video footage of what they described as an oil storage depot ablaze.