Renewed Optimism
Let’s end the year on a positive note: 2023 was great for renewable energy sources. It was also a year of big demand for oil. (I stayed positive as long as I could, I’m a news curator after all…) And nowhere is that demand being met more aggressively than in the United States. “On Wednesday, one week after world governments agreed at COP28 to ‘transition away from fossil fuels,’ oil companies including Shell and Hess bid a collective $382 million for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico, the most for an auction there since 2015. The auction closely followed the release of data showing that U.S. oil production is now higher than in any country at any time in history, reaching about 13.3 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter.” So it was a good news, bad news year for fuel and the environment, but that beats what had become the norm: bad news, bad news years. Tim McDonnell with an interesting look at the numbers in Semafor: 2023 brought clean energy and fossil fuels into competition like never before.
+ If you want to get a glimpse of a future driven by the transition to electric cars, you might want to head to China. “Since the beginning of 2017, China has chalked up more than 18 million EV sales, nearly half the world’s total and over four times more than the US, according to BloombergNEF data. By 2026, the research group projects that over 50% of all new passenger vehicle sales in China will be electric.” Even that is a good news, bad news story as a lot of the electricity powering EVs in China comes from coal. “China has some of the cheapest electricity in the world thanks both to massive adoption of renewables and a bounty of low-cost coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel. China consumes more than half the world’s supply, and coal accounts for about 60% of its power generation. So while the country is investing heavily in renewables, it’s not like the EV surge has suddenly turned China into an environmentalist’s nirvana—even if it does mean a vital step has been taken.” What’s really interesting (and maybe really predicable) is the EV revolution in China is being powered by economics and consumer preferences, not necessarily a concern about the environment. Between the power, acceleration, quiet, one-pedal drive, and no trips to the gas station, even an old fossil like me prefers driving electric. See why so many Chinese drivers are making the switch in Bloomberg: Electric Cars Are Driving China Toward the End of the Age of Oil.
