Page 8 - Fossil Fuel

Fossil fuels 'incompatible with human survival,' says UN chief Guterres

The head of the United Nations launched an angry tirade against fossil fuel companies on Thursday, accusing them of betraying future generations and undermining efforts to phase out a product he called incompatible with human survival. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also dismissed suggestions by some oil executives including the man tapped to chair this year's international climate talks in Dubai that fossil fuel firms can keep up production if they find a way to capture planet-warming carbon emissions. He warned that this would just make them more efficient planet-wreckers. It's not the first time the UN chief has called out Big Oil over its role in causing global warming, but the blunt attack reflects growing frustration at the industry's recent profit bonanza despite warnings from scientists that burning fossil fuels will push the world far beyond any safe climate threshold. Last year, the oil and gas industry reaped a record USD 4 trillion windfall in net income, Guterres

Renewable energy to rise owing to solar power, high fuel prices: Report

The rollout of solar and wind power installations, which are anticipated to reach 440 gigawatts in 2023, has been boosted by high fossil fuel prices, the report said

Non-fossil fuel-based power generation capacity to be 68.4% by 2031-32

The plan was released today and consists of a review of the last five years (2017-2022) along with a detailed plan for the next five years (2022- 2027)

Investments in green energy now 70% higher than in fossil fuels: IEA

The Paris-based agency said that the war in Ukraine has accelerated momentum behind the deployment of clean energy technologies

Chemistry of producing pure hydrogen from non-fossil fuels revealed

Chemists have laid bare the complete reaction mechanism for an important group of "water-splitting" catalysts, taking scientists closer to making pure hydrogen from renewable energy sources. The chemists at the University of Kansas (KU) and US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory achieved this through pulse radiolysis experiments, the results of which are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Understanding how the chemical reactions that make clean fuels like hydrogen work is very challenging," said co-author James Blakemore, associate professor of chemistry, whose research in Lawrence, Kansas, forms the basis of the discovery. "Our paper presents data hard-won from specialised techniques to understand how a certain catalyst for hydrogen generation does the job. Implementing these (techniques) allowed us to get a full picture of how to make hydrogen from its constituent parts, protons and electrons," said Blakemore. Blakemore to

Coal to stay important: Energy majors at 'Just Transition' meeting

At CIL, challenges would be "the most extreme", said its Chairman and Managing Director Pramod Agrawal

Greenwashing, ESG backlash and transitions

While major banks publicly announce more funding for green projects and India strengthens its transition policies, several US states are moving in the opposite direction

G-7 nation agrees to accelerate phase- out of unabated fossil fuels

For the first time ever, the G-7 says that we must accelerate the phasing out of all unabated fossil fuels, Pannier-Runacher told reporters

NTPC to build more coal plants this year to meet soaring power demand

The projects underscore how even as India sets ambitious long-term decarbonization targets, in the near term it will continue to rely on the dirtiest fossil fuel to meet rapidly growing power demand

India's need for fossil fuel encouraging heatwaves that will cripple it

India's emissions are already on the brink of overtaking those from the European Union. By 2030, they'll account for more pollution than Europe and Japan put together

Getting out of fossils

Unless finances are proportionate to the need, the transition to clean energy is a tough proposition, especially in countries where energy affordability is critical

EU mulls banning new gas, diesel cars by 2035 despite divisions

European Union (EU) energy ministers have approved a ban on the production and sale of new cars using traditional fossil fuel engines by 2035

How Vartika Shukla, the first female leader at EIL, is plotting change

Shukla, who's worked for the company for more than three decades, is attempting to change its profile, branching out from construction of fossil-fuel plants into new areas

Climate change insurance: Poor reach, reliance on fossil fuel key issues

India's challenge is that the insurance coverage and penetration vary by lines of business and the low penetration problem is acute

Cutting oil and gas production not healthy, says Shell CEO Wael Sawan

"We've seen of course through 2022 the fragility of the energy system," Sawan said. "To see prices start to skyrocket, that's not healthy for anyone, particularly consumers"

Net zero target: Why 'sustainable economic growth' will elude India

Western reluctance to spend on climate action and the govt's inability to accelerate renewables to power faster economic growth are major hurdles to the net zero target

PM Modi bats for more RE and less fossil fuel or gas-based economy

The PM addressed stakeholders and govt departments in the first of 12 post-Budget webinars by the Centre

No excuse for high methane emissions: Energy agency chief Fatih Birol

The International Energy Agency on Tuesday accused fossil fuel industries of doing too little to curb methane emissions and undermining global climate goals to limit warming. Economic uncertainty, high energy prices and concerns over security of supply, which would have led to emissions cuts in 2022, were ineffective as methane emissions remained stubbornly high, the report said. Methane cuts are among the cheapest options to limit near-term global warming," said IEA's executive director Fatih Birol. "There is just no excuse. The IEA's annual Methane Gas Tracker found that 75 per cent of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector can be reduced with far cheaper and readily available technologies. Methane, which makes up natural gas, can escape into the air from oil and gas infrastructure. Fossil fuel companies may also flare or burn off excess gas that can release methane into the atmosphere. The report slammed oil and gas majors' refusal to pay up the some USD 100 billion need

Govts spent record $1 trillion last year subsidising fossil fuels

The splash of state cash on energy last year followed climate talks in November 2021 when world leaders pledged to end such subsidies.

Fossil fuel related items contributed 20% to annual inflation rate of India

Fossil-fuel related items -- transport and household energy -- contributed about 20 per cent to India's annual rate of inflation between April and May 2022, said a report by Cambridge Econometrics