Bill Spindle
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Articles by Bill Spindle
Amid evolving politics, cleantech financing reaches watershed moment
Money is the key to the energy transition, both the overall sum and how it gets allocated. Today, a greater share is being invested into clean power sources compared to just a few years ago, but less is flowing to new cleantech ideas and startups. The biggest lenders and investors, including major banks, insurance companies and mutual funds, are moving steadily into the huge infrastructure projects that are now driving much of the energy transition, according to the International Energy Agency.
A decade makes a huge difference in energy investment
The energy investment landscape has changed profoundly over the last decade. Back in 2015, fossil fuels dominated the picture, amassing 30% more investments than electricity generation, grids and storage, according to the latest investment report from the International Energy Agency. Now that ratio is reversing. The IEA expects investment in the electricity sector this year to be 50% higher than the total spent to bring oil, natural gas and coal to market.
In a faraway region, winds and nature are powerful forces to balance
PUNTA ARENAS, Chile — The lone wind turbine that towered over us when journalist Patricia Garip and I recently visited the Haru Oni sustainable fuels project in southern Chile does a lot of work. It powers the production of hydrogen (from water) and drives a process that pulls carbon dioxide from the air (via a direct air capture facility). The plant puts those two ingredients together to produce methanol. That methanol can also be made into gasoline and aviation fuel.
Clean hydrogen’s tricky path to production
PUNTA ARENAS, Chile — Along the wind-battered Straits of Magellan in the far reaches of southern Chile, the final pieces of a unique demonstration project by Chilean energy company HIF were recently falling into place. The project’s sole wind turbine was getting a tune up. An electrolyzer, a machine that uses electricity to separate hydrogen from water, was up and running.
A behind-the-scenes tour of the world’s biggest nuclear power plant
KASHIWAZAKI, Japan — Seen from a distance down the beach, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant — the largest nuclear power facility in the world — cuts a giant, sprawling presence along the coast. The highly secured grounds housing its seven reactors cover 4.2 million square meters. Its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, compares its size to 90 Tokyo Domes, the home stadium of Japan’s most successful baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants.
Sustainable aviation fuel gets off the ground
Production of sustainable aviation fuel is beginning to take off in the United States — but cleaner fuels still comprise a tiny slice of the overall fuel used in airplanes, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in aviation, one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions in many parts of the world, is a major challenge. Cross-country and international flights are especially emissions-intensive.
At world’s biggest nuclear plant, how to restart a giant
KASHIWAZAKI, Japan — At the world’s largest nuclear power facility, seven massive reactors are lined up along the blustery coast of the Japan Sea. All the reactors are idle, but the sprawling site is a beehive of activity. To one side construction workers add to fortifications. Below, workers discharge firehoses into a massive water reservoir. Inside the reactor and buildings housing electricity generating turbines, engineers and technicians monitor and maintain equipment.
U.S. oil exports have boomed — but could be leveling off - Cipher News
There are two things to note about the chart above. One is easy to spot; the other is less so. What leaps out is the sharp rise in U.S. oil exports after 2015. That’s when the United States Congress lifted prohibitions on exporting oil that had been in place since 1975. Equally important to note, though, is that exports grew only slightly in 2024. They hit a new record, barely, rising just 1%. That raises the question of where exports go from here. Forcefully upward, if Donald Trump has his way.
In Argentina’s vast and little populated middle, I saw the energy transition in action
NEUQUÉN, Argentina — Argentina is wrangling with the push and pull of the global energy transition, where opportunities and risks abound. That much was obvious during my three weeks of reporting recently in a nation with a turbulent political history, running from populist legends Juan and Evita Perón to today’s controversial President Javier Milei. I saw two faces of Argentina’s fast-expanding energy industry.
How liquefied gas is remaking energy markets and climate risk
HOUSTON — A trio of countries has orchestrated the global trade in liquified natural gas as it’s grown into an energy mainstay for the world over the last 30 years. The Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar built the foundation, the United States has added flexibility and Japan is providing the demand. In the process, the shipped natural gas trade has reshaped worldwide energy markets and geopolitics.
Natural gas presents an energy transition puzzle
NEUQUÉN, Argentina — From his office deep in Argentina’s Pampas region, Gustavo Medele, the minister for mining and resources for Neuquén Province, puzzles over the future of natural gas. He’s far from the only one. Medele’s province sits atop what’s known as the Vaca Muerta, a geological formation that contains some of the world’s richest oil and gas reserves.
The energy transition garnered record investment last year, but the pace slowed
Clean energy grew virtually everywhere last year, but especially in China. Investments in the global energy transition crossed $2 trillion for the first time in 2024, yet the pace — 11% higher than a year earlier — was slower than other recent years, according to a from BloombergNEF. What’s more, total global investment levels are running far off the pace of what would be needed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. That would require 63% more investment than actually took place, BNEF said.
CERAWeek revisited: What a difference a decade makes
HOUSTON — Attending the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference last week for the first time in nearly a decade felt like “Back to the Future” meets “Rip Van Winkle” for me. It turns out the more things stay the same, the more they change. Back when I attended the event in 2016, the oil market was center stage.
CERAWeek and the power of plenty
HOUSTON — More, more, more … That’s been the mantra of CERAWeek by S&P Global this year, the giant energy conference held annually in Houston. For more than a decade now, everyone from President Barack Obama to the heads of major oil companies have espoused a more-of-everything approach to energy policy, almost ritually calling for the whole array of sources, from oil and gas to renewables.
Renewable energy costs fall further
Despite political turmoil and economic uncertainty, costs of renewable energy worldwide are still declining — and those decreases could accelerate, according to an analysis from BloombergNEF published February 4. The costs of clean power technologies such as wind, solar and battery storage are expected to dip 2% to 11% this year, even more than last year’s average decline, BNEF said.
These types of climate technologies could receive a bump under Trump
HOUSTON — Clean energy technologies long considered compatible with oil and natural gas and closely associated with Republicans are likely to have a leading edge in the United States under President Donald Trump, who opposes traditional renewable solar and wind energy technologies.
Power demand to tariffs: Five themes to watch at CERAWeek
HOUSTON — CERAWeek has long been among the biggest business jamborees for the energy industry, with thousands of corporate executives, policy makers and industry analysts from all over the world pouring into a massive convention center downtown to attend speeches, talk shop and forecast the year ahead.
A reporter tracks climate impacts and solutions in Chile
STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, Chile — Having reached the southernmost region of continental South America — by plane, then car and finally on foot — I can testify that Chile is one long, thin country. And the whole slender stretch of it has something to offer the world’s energy transition. Even with a month of reporting, I saw only a small fraction of the place.
On Chile’s coast, a rare earths mining operation seeks to uplift locals and counter China
CONCEPCIÓN, Chile — While the hilltop overlook here boasts a splendid view of the Pacific coast, the land all around us is far less impressive. Municipal garbage trucks rumble along gravel roads to an adjacent landfill. Stumps and branches of dead eucalyptus trees form huge piles, refuse left behind by a former commercial forestry operation.
Chile offers case study in critical mineral mining
SANTIAGO, Chile — In high mountain desert lakes and under rocky coastal bluffs, the critical minerals needed for the energy transition are plentiful here in Chile — lithium for batteries, copper for transmission lines, rare earth elements for wind turbines and electric motors. But they are not unearthed easily. Or inexpensively. Or without disruption to the natural environment — and the people, plants and animals that depend on it.
India is breaking records on renewable energy
India added a record amount of solar energy capacity last year, more than doubling total installations from the previous year. Wind power capacity also accelerated, helping the world’s fourth largest economy produce one of its biggest years ever for renewable energy, JMK Research, an Indian energy consultancy reported. India is dependent on fossil fuels for about three quarters of its power generation and is particularly reliant on coal.
It’s a fossil fuel world
We come again to the question of fossil fuels and their role in the energy transition. They’re hard to get away from, since they’re mostly the problem. But oil and gas companies keep trying. That’s for obvious reasons — as transparent and, frankly, delusional, as these may be. It’s hard to come up with a winning business strategy that ends in the elimination of your main product — although hardly unprecedented in the annals of business history.
China, Qatar and U.S. lead, depending on how you judge emissions
The annual United Nations climate conference known as COP29 will convene in just a few weeks in Azerbaijan. Each country will arrive in Baku with a profile of its greenhouse gas emissions profile and a national plan to reduce them. Yet many of the nearly 200 nations attending the meeting are paying attention not just to overall emissions, but also to each country’s emissions per person.
Lower interest rates should offer relief to renewables
Clean energy projects are getting some relief from one of the biggest challenges they’ve faced over the last four years — rising interest rates. The United States Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by half a percentage point last week after years of pushing them higher to combat inflation. The action followed similar moves by the European Central Bank, which has lowered its rates twice this year. Interest rates, which have jumped five-fold since 2020, are effectively the price to borrow money.
Very big batteries are coming to a grid near you
Large batteries are rapidly connecting to the power grid in the United States as costs fall and the need to store electricity soars, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Through July of this year, grids in the U.S. added five gigawatts of battery capacity, 10 times the amount added in 2020 when installations began to gain momentum, the EIA said. The country has 20.7 gigawatts of battery capacity as of this summer.
Charting Texas’ road to becoming a renewable energy powerhouse
I first visited the Texas oil patch back in 2016 on assignment for The Wall Street Journal. As I passed through West Texas on my way to the fossil-fuel rich Permian Basin, I couldn’t help noticing something surprising: wind turbines everywhere. I had stumbled onto the state’s clean little secret: a renewable energy boom, which, it turns out, was only just getting started.
In Australia, renewable hydrogen dreams are meeting reality
Few have been more bullish on renewable, or “green,” hydrogen remaking energy and transforming industry than Australia’s richest man, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest. He has literally traversed the globe over the past five years singing the praises of renewable hydrogen in conferences, corporate C-suites and public appearances.
In Southeast Asia, it’s a slow road to phasing out coal
MANILA, Philippines — Just over a decade ago, the Manila-based energy company ACEN was looking for the fastest, most reliable way to meet surging power demand in the Philippines. Back then, before the cost of solar and wind began dropping precipitously, the company decided the only financially-viable option was coal, according to ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia.
Parametric Insurance Increasingly Aids Farmers, Others Dealing With Extreme Weather
Joemar Flores, a spindly 28-year-old, gestured across his family’s farmland, nestled between a steep hill and a river, and expressed gratitude for the rice paddies in the distance. They’re still there, producing food and an income for him, thanks in part to a novel form of insurance that is increasingly being used to help vulnerable populations build resilience to climate change.
Parametric Insurance’ Helps Farmers and Others Hit Hard by Extreme Weather
Joemar Flores, a spindly 28-year-old, gestured across his family’s farmland, nestled between a steep hill and a river, and expressed gratitude for the rice paddies in the distance. They’re still there, producing food and an income for him, thanks in part to a novel form of insurance that is increasingly being used to help vulnerable populations build resilience to climate change.
Climate Alternative Insurance
A growing type of insurance, called parametric insurance, is helping farmers and others in developing countries respond to extreme weather events. Traditional forms of insurance pay out based on damages, say after a storm, as determined by an on-site inspection. This usually involves a lot of paperwork, bureaucracy and waiting, sometimes for years. Parametric insurance works differently.
Increasingly popular 'parametric insurance' helps farmers and others hit hard by extreme weather
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Increasingly popular 'parametric insurance' helps farmers and others hit hard by extreme weather
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Increasingly popular 'parametric insurance' helps farmers and others hit hard by extreme weather Original
Increasingly popular ‘parametric insurance’ helps farmers and others hit hard by extreme weather 1 of 5 | Joemar Flores stands at his farm in Mindanao, Philippines, May 9, 2024. A growing type of insurance, called parametric insurance, is helping farmers like Flores and others in developing countries respond to extreme weather events. (Bill Spindle/Cipher News via AP) 2 of 5 | A road is visible at the farm of Joemar Flores in Mindanao, Philippines, May 9, 2024.
Increasingly popular 'parametric insurance' helps farmers and others hit hard by extreme weather
By BILL SPINDLE, Cipher News MINDANAO, Philippines (AP) - Joemar Flores, a spindly 28-year-old, gestured across his family's farmland, nestled between a steep hill and a river, and expressed gratitude for the rice paddies in the distance. They're still there, producing food and an income for him, thanks in part to a novel form of insurance that is increasingly being used to help vulnerable populations build resilience to climate change. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Climate Alternative Insurance
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