The Rockefeller Foundation, a 107-year-old philanthropy founded by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller Sr., has a $5 billion endowment. And that foundation is divesting from the oil that created its wealth — and it’s the largest US philanthropic foundation to do so.
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The UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) approved a ban on Friday of ships’ use and carriage of heavy fuel oil (HFO) in Arctic waters after July 1, 2024. However, since it includes exemptions and waivers — loopholes — a complete HFO ban would only come into effect in mid-2029.
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Donald Trump’s administration is bulldozing through a last-minute gas and oil drilling-rights auction in Alaska’s 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Biden vowed to block oil exploration in the largest national wildlife refuge in the country.
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Bob Murray, the board chairman of Murray Energy, the largest privately owned — and bankrupt — US coal operator, died on Sunday at age 80. He had announced his retirement less than a week before.
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Chevron Corp (CVX.N) and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), the two largest US energy firms, have increased their share of campaign donations to Democrats in 2020, according to the latest filings.
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Residential geothermal company Dandelion Energy yesterday announced that it’s hired a new vice president of drillings whose name is Jeremy Smith. What’s unique about Smith? The exec comes from a fossil-fuel background.
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BP stated in a forecast published today that oil may have reached its peak due to the pandemic and that renewables will take the place of fossil fuels.
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The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled yesterday that the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) does not have to be shut and drained, as per a lower court order on July 6. It’s able to keep operating for now. The three-judge panel said they did not have the “findings necessary” to shut it down.
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On January 9, Donald Trump announced there would be an overhaul of the US’ landmark environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Today, he finalized a rollback of the NEPA.
This drastically limits the ability of citizens and communities to learn about and give input on major infrastructure projects that could threaten public health and the environment.
Dominion Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp. are canceling the $8 billion, 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The natural gas pipeline was to run 600 miles from West Virginia, through Virginia, to eastern North Carolina.
Duke Energy Corp has a net zero by 2050 goal in accordance with the Paris Accords. However, the reason for killing the pipeline is not environmental; it’s because of anticipated legal delays driving up costs.
The CDC Group, the British government’s development finance institution, will end most fossil-fuel financing abroad. It says it will invest only in companies that align with the Paris Agreement to achieve net zero by 2050.
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
A new study from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, published in Science Advances, provides strong evidence of the causal link between long-term fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure — air pollution — and premature death rates. The study provides the most comprehensive evidence to date.
The state of Minnesota filed a lawsuit yesterday against the American Petroleum Institute (API), Exxon Mobil Corp, and Koch Industries that stated the companies violated Minnesota laws barring consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices, and false advertising.
The Trump administration has eliminated states’ and tribes’ rights to halt projects that risk hurting their water quality by rolling back a section of the Clean Water Act (CWA).
On February 20, Hartshorne Mining Group, who owns Poplar Grove, a thermal coal mine in western Kentucky that was lauded as the first to open under Donald Trump’s pro-coal administration, filed for bankruptcy. Hartshorne then filed a lawsuit against the US government this month because they were not awarded coronavirus relief money.
The March US coronavirus stimulus package, the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, featured the Small Business Association’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). But Big Oil and Gas, most of which are valued well over the $2 million threshold, received at least $72 million total.
EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson wants to make a Green Deal part of the pandemic recovery plan. Simson told Bloomberg, “Getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies while lowering taxes on electricity can nudge us in the right direction, without putting too much pressure on the consumers.”
ExxonMobil held its investor day at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) yesterday, and its CEO, Darren Woods, dismissed carbon targets as a “beauty match” with other companies.
Connecticut state senator Matt Lesser (D), a co-chair of the state senate’s insurance committee, is pushing a bill that would require the state’s insurance commissioner to study and report on climate change issues. A public hearing on the bill was held yesterday.
The SB583 solar bill debate was lively on the West Virginia House floor yesterday, and some of the delegates’ viewpoints were… interesting. However, the House of Delegates ultimately passed the bill on a 75-23 vote that will make it easier for companies to get a small portion of their power supply from solar energy.
You know what’s shortening people’s lives globally, far more than viruses, wars, disease, and smoking? It’s air pollution, according to a new study released today and published in Cardiovascular Research.
JP Morgan, the world’s largest financier of the fossil-fuel industry, announced yesterday that it will end fossil-fuel loans for Arctic oil drilling and phase out loans for coal mining.
Nearly 1 in 5 cars in Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city, are fully electric. The reality that such a place exists has sent oil and fuel-retail companies to Norway to prepare for the disruption ahead.
London’s Financial Times reported this week that Canada’s Couche-Tard, a multinational company with about 15,000 convenience stores, is using Norway as a “laboratory” to study a future without gas stations. Couche-Tard replaced fuel pumps with EV chargers in some of its Circle K gas stations in Scandinavia.