Energy

Essential energy industry news & intel to start your week.
May 16, 2021
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Happy Sunday; I hope it is pleasantly warm wherever you are! 

 

To start: What share of rural voters back the Biden administration’s plan to conserve and restore 30 percent of the country’s lands and waters by 2030? Here are your options (answer at the bottom of the newsletter): 

 

A: 31% B: 39% C: 46% D: 52%

 

What’s Ahead

Columbia’s Global Energy Summit will take place Tuesday through Thursday, featuring energy experts from the United States and abroad. It will focus on “understanding trends shaping our current energy system, and what’s ahead for energy policy, energy markets, geopolitics, technology and efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change.” Why it’s worth watching: The three-day virtual event features some of the industry’s biggest players, including Damilola Ogunbiyi, chief executive and special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All (Tuesday, 9:45 a.m.); Gina McCarthy, White House national climate advise (Tuesday, noon); Dr. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (Wednesday, 11 a.m.)’ and BP PLC CEO Bernard Looney (Wednesday, noon). 

 

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will hold its first hearing on the reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Why it’s worth watching: The NFIP has long been the subject of controversy, with competing proposals from both sides of the aisle on reforming the debt-ridden program. While the last administration reauthorized the program in the fall, Congress must renew the NFIP’s statutory authority to operate periodically (i.e. on or before Sept. 30 of this year). Many stakeholders, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency itself, have said the reauthorization process is a good opportunity to reform and “reduce the complexity of the program,” especially as hurricanes and sea-level rise increasingly cause flooding problems in communities nationwide. This hearing will be a good chance to take the temperature of federal lawmakers as the debate kicks into gear.   

 

On Thursday at 9:30 a.m, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold a hearing titled “Powering Up Clean Energy: Investments to Modernize and Expand the Electric Grid,” which will take on “the ways that upgrading and expanding the electric grid can create jobs, integrate higher levels of renewable energy, boost grid reliability and protect public health.” Why it’s worth watching: The witnesses called so far — Linda Apsey, president and CEO of ITC Holdings Corp.; Donnie Colston, utility department director for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Michael Skelly, founder and president of Grid United; and Emily Sanford Fisher, general counsel, corporate secretary and senior vice president of clean energy for the Energy Edison Electric Institute — represent a wide range of utility system stakeholders. While the climate committee is made up of Democrats, the slate of speakers would likely appeal to lawmakers on the other side of the aisle as well; I’ll be watching to see whether the hearing results in any proposals that could garner bipartisan support. 

 

Events Calendar

 

Week in Review

Energy once again dominated headlines this week. It was impossible to miss the fallout from the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline Co. — which controls one of the fossil fuel infrastructure’s main arteries, an oil pipeline carrying fuel from Texas and up the East Coast — but the nuances of the reaction were a bit more complicated, so I’ll recap the saga here.

 

About the fuel: While the pipeline remained shut down for four full days, it began its slow restart on Wednesday with limited shipments from North Carolina to Maryland. However, the damage to consumer impressions of the country’s fuel supplies had already been done. Consumers rushed out to buy fuel following news of the shutdown, causing gasoline prices to tick up dramatically on Tuesday and certain gas stations to run out of fuel.

 

But shortages persisted even once service restarted, causing President Joe Biden to implore the country’s drivers not to buy more gasoline than they need, despite persistent shortages resulting from the pipeline’s shutdown, calling the supply squeeze “temporary.”

 

About the government’s response: Colonial’s suspension caused the Biden administration to immediately take steps to prepare for supply disruptions concentrated in parts of the Southeast. 

 

For instance, last Sunday, the Transportation Department enacted emergency powers to remove restrictions on fuel transportation by roads, citing “a need for immediate transportation of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products.” DOT also temporarily waived the Jones Act, which prevents foreign ships from carrying products between U.S. ports, in the interest of facilitating fuel supply transport. And the Environmental Protection Agency enacted multiple fuel waivers allowing retailers in all or part of 12 states and Washington, D.C., to sell gasoline that does not meet certain environmental restrictions.

 

Citing the attack,  Biden signed an executive order that has been in the works for months to improve the nation’s cybersecurity, which encourages better measures within the private sector, better safeguards for the software supply chain and better government response to significant attacks.

 

About the hackers: Monday dawned with news that the attack was carried out by the criminal group DarkSide, a fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed. Possibly based in Russia but unaffiliated from the country’s government, the relatively new organization of hackers was apparently surprised at the level of disruption it caused, saying in a statement that its “goal is to make money and not creating [sic] problems for society.” On Thursday, DarkSide’s website went down and the group told associates it is shutting down operations entirely, according to security research firms.  

 

In other news: 

 

  • The EPA released its “climate indicators” data for the first time since the Trump administration paused its publication in 2016, illustrating global warming-related changes to the U.S. landscape in recent years and marking the first time the agency has acknowledged the impact that humans have had on these changes. The report, which came alongside an updated website, described how the country has entered an unprecedented phase in warming, citing developments including the destruction of Alaska’s permafrost and an escalation of summer heat waves.
  • The EPA has also begun the 30-day process of rolling back the Trump-era “cost-benefit rule,” which altered how the agency measured the economic implications of new rules aimed at reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The policy broke down the public health benefits of new regulations into direct and ancillary benefits, a move backed by the fossil fuel industry, which argued that the federal government’s formulas had overcounted these benefits and resulted in cumbersome pollution restrictions. 
  • As anticipated, the Interior Department authorized the construction of the Vineyard Wind LLC project, the first major offshore wind farm in federal waters. The 800-megawatt generation of the farm, which will be located near the coast of Massachusetts, is a major step in moving toward the Biden administration’s goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind developments by 2030.
  • A World Bank report found that global gas flaring decreased by roughly 5 percent in 2020 because of the broader decrease in oil demand as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. China saw an increase and Russia flared more gas than any other country, while the United States saw a particularly dramatic drop of 32 percent, mainly due to new gas capture infrastructure.
 
Stat of the Week
 

$5 million

 

That’s how much Colonial Pipeline Co. reportedly paid the Eastern European hackers who launched a ransomware attack on the pipeline that carries fuel along the East Coast, despite earlier reports that the company had no plans to pay up.  

 

Correction: The May 9 Sunday newsletter featured an incorrect “Stat of the Week” connected to the story “Exclusive Analysis: Hitting 2035 Goal of All New Electric Car Sales Will Come With Mid-Decade Rise in Energy Demanded,” reflecting an error in the data provided by Atlas. It should have read “55 million MWh: That’s how many megawatt-hours of power California’s electric vehicles alone are projected to demand by 2035 if the state hits the milestone of zero emissions of all new vehicle sales by that date.”

 
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