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MORNING ENERGY NEWS | 07/29/2020
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** Representing the interests of New York's 14th district, and the Chinese Communist Party.
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Epoch Times ([link removed]) (7/28/20) reports: "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is quietly pushing an amendment to a congressional budget bill that energy experts claim could cripple Americans’ ability to heat and cool their homes. The amendment from the first-term New York Democrat who is more popularly known as 'AOC' would also be an economic boon to China’s near monopoly on rare earth minerals required for the solar panels, wind turbine parts, inverters, and batteries required for renewable energy systems...'This amendment is nothing less than unilateral energy disarmament that benefits the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Red China. At the same time [Ocasio-Cortez] is advising Joe Biden on energy and introducing amendments to stop American energy infrastructure, the Red China government is announcing a $56 billion deal to own and expand their own energy
circulation system,' American Energy Alliance (AEA) Senior Vice President Dan Kish told The Epoch Times Tuesday. 'China knows it needs a good energy delivery system to make the solar panels, wind turbine parts and inverters and batteries Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal will subsidize and force Americans to buy,' Kish said. 'Since China controls 90+ percent of the rare earth minerals and the cobalt and lithium and other minerals “green energy” sources require, this amendment really sets China up for a huge economic stimulus,' he said."


** "A key lesson of the U.S. energy revolution is that resource abundance will only get the Australian economy so far. A variety of factors such as institutional arrangements, property rights, free markets, infrastructure development, and regulatory and policy settings must all play a critical role."
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– Alex Robson, University of Sydney ([link removed])

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Green Dream would stop child slave labor, but for Covid-19. Really!

** E&E News ([link removed])
(7/28/20) reports: "The coronavirus pandemic may make it harder for companies to undertake drastic reforms of how they source the lithium and cobalt used in electric vehicle batteries, even as industry hopes to shed its association with human rights abuses and environmental impacts, according to a report published Thursday. The industry has been criticized for exploiting child labor, creating monopolies and lacking transparency. But widespread mine shutdowns and slowed investment in EV minerals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could make reform less likely. 'Near-term delays in new investments due to the current coronavirus crisis might exacerbate' challenges by 'disrupting extraction and production processes across the chain, further entrenching a few suppliers' dominance,' wrote the report's authors. 'If a few dominant players are not participating in a serious way in sustainability efforts, it can really limit their effectiveness,' said Patrick Heller, a co-author of the report and an
adviser at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, a sustainable development nonprofit."

A lot of hoops to jump through when we already have energy independence available at home.

** Reuters ([link removed])
(7/28/20) reports: "The U.S. Department of Defense has just committed funding for two rare earth separation plants on U.S. soil. It’s one small step towards the Trump administration’s stated goal of breaking the country’s dependence on Chinese supplies of critical minerals.But the direct involvement of the Pentagon und erlines the scale of the task associated with creating from scratch a non-Chinese rare earths supply chain. The United States was almost totally dependent on imports of rare earth compounds and metals last year, just as it was the year before and the year before that. China remained the largest supplier to the tune of around 80% of all imports, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). That reliance on China for minerals with critical uses across a wide spectrum of civilian and military applications is becoming ever more problematic as Sino-U.S. relations deteriorate. However, to break it, as the United States is finding out, requires a mix of direct government
support, alliances with like-minded countries, and a long-term focus on the six-stage process chain from ore to rare earth magnet."

It was Congressperson Eric Swalwell!

** E&E News ([link removed])
(7/29/20) reports: "It was 12 miles wide, invisible to the naked eye and traveled across six counties to Florida's largest city. And it's still unclear who — or what — was responsible. The mysterious plume of methane, estimated to total 300 metric tons, was released north of Gainesville between May 2 and May 3, when it reached Jacksonville, according to Bluefield Technologies Inc., which analyzed data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5P satellite. A global-warming agent that's 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, methane has become a major source of concern for environmentalists and climate-minded investors who are stepping up pressure on energy companies to curb emissions of the gas from oil fields, pipelines, gas storage facilities and power plants. Satellite observations are beginning to make those leaks more transparent. Last year, Montreal-based GHGSat Inc. identified a giant methane cloud apparently from an oil and gas field in Turkmenistan, billing it the first
discovery of an unknown industrial methane release from space...The source of the Florida emission remains unknown, however. Its volume was equivalent to roughly 1% of total daily emissions from the U.S. natural gas system in 2018, Stanford University professor Adam Brandt said. Its epicenter was in Alachua County, according to Bluefield."

** ([link removed])

Energy Markets


WTI Crude Oil: ↑ $41.42
Natural Gas: ↓ $1.78
Gasoline: ~ $2.18

Diesel: ~ $2.43
Heating Oil: ↑ $125.31
Brent Crude Oil: ↑ $43.71
** US Rig Count ([link removed])
: ↑ 288

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