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MORNING ENERGY NEWS  | 04/07/2021
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The new green movement is all about helping their wind and solar backers. 

"When Marie Antoinette was told that the poor could not afford bread, she reportedly said to 'let them eat cake.' For Americans who are struggling in the wake of the pandemic, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone has effectively declared to let them charge their Teslas." 

 

– Oliver McPherson-Smith,
American Consumer Institute

But in the end, Paris doesn't even matter.


Reuters (4/7/21) reports: "As coal-fired power retreats across most of the globe, China is emerging as the last major stronghold of the polluting fuel and the biggest obstacle to meeting climate change targets. There was both good and bad news in the Global Energy Monitor’s latest Boom and Bust report, which tracks the development and operations of coal-fired power plants across the world. The positive news from a climate change perspective is that 2020 saw 37.8 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired generation retired globally, matching the prior record from 2015, and a rise of 4% from 2019. However, China commissioned 38.4 GW of new coal plants last year, more than offsetting the retirements achieved in the rest of the world. China’s new coal plants represented 76% of the global total, and perhaps more worrying for the ambition to lower carbon emissions, the country still has an ambitious construction pipeline. To put China’s expansion in 2020 into perspective, the country in second place, India, added only 2 GW of new coal-fired capacity, or just 5.2% of China’s addition. China has 88.1 GW of coal-fired generation under construction, or almost half the global total, and a further 158.7 GW in the pipeline, again, half of the rest of the world combined."

It has been 75 days since Joe Biden signed the executive order killing the Keystone Pipeline. Still no lower-paying green jobs for those workers who were laid off...


Politico (4/4/21) reports: "President Joe Biden's efforts to sell the country's workers on his climate agenda will face a major hurdle, data obtained by POLITICO show — a big wage gap between the new green energy jobs and the old fossil fuel ones. Energy industry workers employed by solar and wind power companies earn significantly less than those who mine coal or drill for natural gas, according to data compiled by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz's clean energy think tank. For example, the median wage for solar workers is $24.48 an hour compared with $30.33 for those employed by the natural gas sector, which amounts to a roughly $12,000 annual wage gap. These wage disparities threaten to undermine Biden's promise that the nation can launch a multitrillion-dollar assault on climate change while growing its economy and transitioning workers to well-paying jobs. Biden himself gets that, said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, an organization of labor unions and environmental groups jointly working on environmental issues. He said Biden understands the value of the labor movement within the transition to a clean energy economy, and highlighted proposals in Biden's infrastructure plan unveiled last week to beef up clean energy job quality."
 

A tax credit scheme just for rich people. Shocking. 


Utility Dive (4/1/21) reports: "Utility Dive today released its 8th annual State of the Electric Utility (SEU) Survey Report, which is chock full of data and insights about the power sector...A growing number of states have some kind of mandate to reduce carbon emissions in their power sectors, with some aiming for full decarbonization within the next 30 years. At the federal level, President Joe Biden has called for 100% clean energy by 2035 and Democrats have introduced the CLEAN Future Act to help achieve that...But while financial incentives are at the top, one move in the tax arena that would be 'game-changing,' and provide incentives for taxpayers to invest in technology, would be to allow high net worth, individual taxpayers to monetize these credits for commercial projects, Nese said."

Energy Markets

 
WTI Crude Oil: ↓ $59.24
Natural Gas: ↑ $2.49
Gasoline: ~ $2.87
Diesel: ~ $3.08
Heating Oil: ↓ $179.01
Brent Crude Oil: ↓ $62.72
US Rig Count: ↑ 510

 
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