** The President’s move to revoke the scientific basis for the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in America is expected to go to the courts. The finding itself has its roots in the legal system. Back in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — but only if the agency found that the gases were a threat to public health and welfare. In 2009, the EPA furnished overwhelming evidence in support of that point.
** Data centers and other large loads with service agreements are driving up demand expectations across the service territories of American Electric Power utilities, especially in Texas, company officials said Thursday during a fourth-quarter earnings call. That in turn is helping drive the company’s capital expenditure plans, they said.
** Concerns over rising electricity bills will guide changes in AI data center development, particularly around how they are powered, but are unlikely to slow the overall expansion and need for grid resources, analysts from Bank of America said in a Thursday report.
At least 10 North American EV battery plants are being revamped to instead produce grid batteries for energy storage systems.
** Offshore wind performed as well as gas power plants and better than coal in January, shoring up the Northeast’s power grid through a brutal cold spell.
** Myriad Uranium hits definitive agreement for 100% of Wyoming’s Copper Mountain. Copper Mountain is increasingly viewed by analysts as a key domestic “call option” due to its scale and its location in Wyoming, which currently produces the vast majority of U.S. uranium.
World
** US Energy Secretary Chris Wright vowed to power a “dramatic increase” in Venezuelan oil output as part of a plan to “make the Americas great again.” Wright met interim leader Delcy Rodriguez in Caracas, becoming the highest-ranking US official to visit Venezuela since US special forces captured and overthrew socialist leader Nicolas Maduro on January 3.
** Chris O’Shea, CEO of Centrica, predicts that UK electricity prices in 2030 will be higher than they were at the peak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, primarily due to “system costs” from years of underinvestment.
** French multinational energy company TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne has said that it is “too expensive and too polluting” to return operations to Venezuela, despite the urging of Donald Trump. The firm pulled out of the South American country in 2022.
** Senior Russian officials have challenged the viability of U.S. proposals to build a nuclear power plant in Armenia, in a sign of Moscow’s concern about the risk of losing a lucrative energy deal in a country it sees as part of its sphere of influence.