Tag - energy

 
 

ENERGY

Sunset at Dudley Page Reserve, in Dover Heights, Sydney, on April 21
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 29, 2025
Australia’s economic ‘miracle’ is ending no matter who wins vote
Polls suggest the May 3 election will be tight, with many pundits predicting the winner will lead a minority government.
Jera, the world's biggest liquefied natural gas buyer, sees U.S. President Donald Trump's pet project in Alaska one of the promising procurement sources.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 28, 2025
Japan’s top gas buyer mulls procuring LNG from Alaska export project
"We see Alaska as one of the promising procurement sources,” Naohiro Maekawa, an executive officer at Jera, said at a news conference on Monday.
U.S. President Donald Trump has touted the $44 billion Alaska liquefied natural gas project, which would deliver gas from the state's North Slope fields via a 1,300 kilometer pipeline for domestic use and send it to customers in Asia as LNG, bypassing the Panama Canal.
WORLD
Apr 25, 2025
U.S. expected to press Japan and South Korea for support of Alaska LNG project
The $44 billion Alaska liquefied natural gas project would send gas to customers in Asia as LNG, bypassing the Panama Canal.
Consumer prices excluding fresh food in Tokyo gained 3.4% in April from a year earlier, as a mixture of impacts from last year’s school fee cuts and higher food and energy costs accelerated inflation, according to the internal affairs ministry.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 25, 2025
Tokyo prices rise most in two years, backing central bank's hike path
Consumer prices excluding fresh food gained 3.4% in April from a year earlier. Tokyo's figures are a leading indicator for national price gains.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on April 17
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 23, 2025
Opposition slams Ishiba's gas price cut while calling to scrap provisional tax
Ishiba's decision would lower gas prices by ¥10 per liter starting May 22, but nixing the provisional gas tax would lower prices by ¥25.
Japan has started discussing specific measures to expand liquefied natural gas imports from the United States to reduce its trade surplus, as demanded by Washington.
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2025
Japan mulls expanding imports of LNG from the U.S. for tariff negotiations
In 2024, Japan imported ¥542.6 billion of LNG from the U.S.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba receives a gift from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the start of their meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 22, 2025
Nvidia CEO urges LDP to build up Japan’s AI infrastructure
Japan has pledged to increase government and corporate funding in AI to over ¥50 trillion ($350 billion) in the next 10 years.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang answers questions from reporters after his meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2025
Nvidia CEO lobbies Japan to generate more power to fuel AI
The two discussed how Japan is particularly well-positioned to develop AI, given its leadership in robotics and industrial manufacturing.
An LNG tanker is guided by tug boats in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, on April 14, 2022. The European Union is looking at ways to make it easier for U.S. gas exports to comply with its methane emissions rules.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 21, 2025
EU explores tweaking methane rules for U.S. gas to help trade talks
The European Commission is looking at using flexibilities in how it applies the bloc's methane rules, which could benefit U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters, sources say.
When Jera co-fired ammonia at its Hekinan coal plant in Aichi Prefecture last year, it reduced emissions by 20%.
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2025
Japan embraces lab-made fuels despite costs and climate concerns
Japanese utilities say e-methane is chemically almost identical to natural gas but is effectively carbon-neutral.
The Northern Lights Carbon Capture and Storage facility in Bergen, Norway.
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 19, 2025
Big bets on speculative carbon capture tech ignore today’s solutions
Companies from Occidental Petroleum to Microsoft are among the investors throwing billions at carbon capture startups.
The crude oil tanker New Odyssey arrives at the port in Qingdao, in China's eastern Shandong province on April 15. The U.S. has issued new sanctions targeting Iran's oil exports, including against a China-based independent oil refinery.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 17, 2025
U.S. issues new sanctions targeting Chinese importers of Iranian oil
The move comes as Washington seeks to ramp up pressure on Iran as it reentered talks with Tehran over its nuclear program this month.
The Trump administration, in a desperate bid to cushion trade war inflation, is pushing for cheap oil, but $50-a-barrel will ultimately widen the very trade deficit the U.S. president wants to reduce.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2025
$50-a-barrel oil is a problem for the U.S. trade deficit
If oil prices fall to $50, under that scenario, total petroleum production in America will probably decline by 1 million barrels a day by the end of 2025.
Microsoft is set to use energy from new reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 10, 2025
AI surge to double data center electricity demand by 2030, report says
AI can also unlock opportunities to produce and consume electricity more efficiently, the International Energy Agency said in its first report on the technology's implications.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a campaign rally in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 10, 2025
Canada’s Mark Carney treads a fine line on climate in a tight election
In a nation whose energy sector is still dominated by oil and gas, the question is how much the new prime minister may need to play down his green resume in order to win.
Hedge funds are trying to hire more in Japan, as traders look to power markets in the country with more green energy and uncertainties surrounding nuclear plant restarts.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 9, 2025
Hedge funds eye volatile Asia power markets with new hires
They are pushing into the region with the aim of offsetting declining profits from mainstay commodities.
Brine pools at the Atacama salt flat in Antofagasta region, Chile, in 2023. Local Chilean Indigenous communities are pushing for greater control over lithium extraction in the country just as the government plans to raise production.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Apr 8, 2025
As Chile revs up lithium plans, Indigenous people demand more control
Mining companies describe a potential system as "unprecedented" in Chile, adding that it would comply with international treaties on Indigenous rights.
The International Space Station is seen as a small object to the upper left of the moon.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 5, 2025
Honda to test renewable tech in space soon
The auto giant is developing a mechanism capable of generating electricity and oxygen continuously — enabling astronauts to breathe.
Gladstone, Australia, long reliant on fossil fuel exports, is now struggling to reinvent itself as the world shifts toward clean energy, with political uncertainty and economic challenges clouding its prospects.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2025
Cleaning up a giant coal and gas port isn’t easy
Gladstone is now one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel ports thanks to decades of voracious global demand for steelmaking coal and gas.
A tank containing liquid hydrogen in Kobe, where a special shipping terminal has been built in order to import liquid hydrogen from Australia.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2025
Japan-Australia flagship hydrogen project stumbles
The blockbuster project is hanging in the balance over questions about its climate credentials.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers