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DAILY ENERGY NEWS | 12/05/2024

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Big Green, Inc.'s taxpayer-sponsored vacation is coming to an end.

Detroit News (12/4/24) reports: "Over the past four years, the Biden administration said it has funneled hundreds of billions of dollars to help towns and neighborhoods most harmed by pollution. The money, largely through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, paid for electric school buses to replace diesel-burning vehicles, brought solar to tribal lands and funded local groups to clean up their communities. It all came out of a promise President Joe Biden made to devote 40 percent of money dedicated to cutting pollution to the heavily poor, often non-White areas that shoulder a disproportionate burden. Now, as President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team prepares for a second term, this approach - called Justice40 - could be on the chopping block...Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a conservative energy research group, said that Trump made gains with Black and Latino voters because of his economic message, not an environmental one. Trump’s support among Hispanic voters grew by 14 percentage points from 2020, reaching 46 percent, a record-high for a Republican presidential candidate since 1980. His support among Black Americans did not change significantly from 2020. 'He brought in African Americans, he brought in Hispanics, he brought in a lot of new voters. He didn’t bring them in on this issue. He brought them in on "I want to put more money in your pocket,"’ Pyle said."

"The hard reality is that climate change policy doesn’t have much traction in international affairs and its importance is declining amid concerns about inflation, all-out war with Russia, trade, and immigration."

– Robert Bryce, Substack

Americans should be free to choose the car or truck that is right for them.

Just The News (12/5/24) reports: "The Biden-Harris administration ushered in a deluge of rules limiting emissions in the transportation sector, and the only way for automakers to comply would be to produce a lot of electric vehicles...Incoming GOP President Trump was vocal during his campaign that he would be no friend of the Biden-Harris EV rules, and they are not likely to survive long after Jan. 20, when Trump takes office...Alex Stevens, manager of policy and communications for the Institute for Energy Research, told Just the News that with the federal bailout of Chrysler in 1980 and the 2008 bailouts of the Big Three, the American automobile industry became wedded to the federal government. 'They can't ever be on the opposite side of any administration. Because the way that they operate is, implicitly, with a sort of bailout mentality,' he said. Leading up the election, Stevens said, they were positioning themselves to go either way depending on the outcome. Now with Trump coming into the White House, they’re trying to cozy up to the new administration. 'Maybe they’re not entirely on board with Trump’s policy agenda, but they’re not in a position to push back against it. They have no bargaining power,' he said. Stevens also speculates that there may be more internal disagreements over the EV vision at the companies than comes out in the media. The abrupt resignation this week of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares suggests, at least at one of the Big Three, that is the case."

News for anyone concerned with the myth of “peak” production.

Forbes (12/3/24) column: "Incoming President Donald Trump and his team have suggested that by expanding drilling, oil production might rise by 3 million barrels/day (mb/d), bringing down prices and thus U.S. inflation. This is meeting pushback from experts who argue that, first, most drilling is on private lands and so the federal government has little influence over drilling rates, but also some are now claiming that a peak in U.S. shale oil production is near...The argument that a peak is near is questionable. U.S. shale production has grown more slowly in recent years, as the figure below shows. This reflects first, the oil price collapse in 2014/15 and then the 2020 pandemic, but more recently the result of pressure from investors who asked companies to exercise ‘capital discipline,’ investing less, paying down debt and returning more cash to shareholders. Some in the industry have also urged their fellows not to drill so much as to collapse prices, although historically such importunings have carried little weight."

Coal: when you absolutely, positively need to keep the lights on.

E&E News (12/5/24) reports: "For the second time in about two years, Wisconsin utilities are extending the life of one of the state’s largest coal-fired power plants and possibly converting it to run on natural gas, saying the change is necessary to ensure grid reliability. Plant co-owners Alliant Energy, Madison Gas and Electric and Wisconsin Public Service said in a statement that the 1,100-megawatt Columbia Energy Center would continue to operate through the end of the decade to allow for the evaluation of converting one of the plant’s two units to natural gas. The companies said the extension doesn’t affect their goals to achieve carbon emissions goals and existing commitments to eliminate coal as a fuel source. The plant in south-central Wisconsin was initially slated for closure this year. In 2022, the owners announced that its retirement would be postponed by two years in response to tightening market conditions in the Midwest as older fossil fuel generation shuttered at a faster rate than additions of new, mostly renewable power sources."

Energy Markets

WTI Crude Oil: ↑ $68.78
Natural Gas: ↑ $3.12
Gasoline: ↓ $3.03

Diesel: ↓ $3.53
Heating Oil: ↑ $217.22
Brent Crude Oil: ↑ $72.57
US Rig Count: ↑ 608

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