Today’s Key Takeaways: Nuclear energy attracting world’s top banks. Doyon subsidiary pursues 20% of North Slope pipeline. Capturing CO2 at Alaska Nikolai project. Democrats outspending Republicans.
NEWS OF THE DAY:
World’s Top Banks Back Nuclear Energy
Tsvetana Paraskova, OilPrice.Com, September 23, 2024
More than a dozen of the largest banks in the world are pledging their support to nuclear power, supporting the goal of the COP28 summit to triple nuclear capacity by 2050, the Financial Times reports.
Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole CIB, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Ares Management, Brookfield, Guggenheim Securities, Rothschild & Co, and Segra Capital Management are set to pledge at a New York event on Monday their support to boosting global nuclear power capacity and generation as a means to achieving net-zero.
At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai at the end of last year, the United States and 21 other countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, saying incorporating more nuclear power in their energy mix is critical for achieving their net zero goals in the coming decades.
The United States, alongside Britain, France, Canada, Sweden, South Korea, Ghana, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), among others, signed the declaration at the COP28 climate summit.
The world’s biggest banks are not expected to go into details about what they would do in regard to the pledge, but analysts tell FT that the mere fact that they are now publicly supporting nuclear energy would be an important recognition that nuclear will play a crucial role in the decarbonization of the global energy systems.
There is “no scenario” in which net zero could be reached by 2050 without nuclear energy, BNP told FT, quoting the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Barclays, for its part, told FT that it supports nuclear power as it could be the backup solution for intermittent solar and wind power generation.
Despite being an industry notoriously known for years of delays and huge cost overruns, a global nuclear power renaissance is underway.
The comeback of nuclear energy is expected to drive a record-high electricity generation from nuclear in 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said early this year
OIL:
Doyon subsidiary wants 20% of key North Slope pipeline
Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal, September 18, 2024
A subsidiary of Doyon, the Fairbanks-based Alaska Native corporation, is asking state regulators for permission to acquire 20% of a major North Slope pipeline from a ConocoPhillips affiliate.
The two companies applied Wednesday to the RCA for permission to transfer the minority share of the Kuparuk pipeline, which currently moves up to 175,000 barrels of oil a day.
Earlier this month, another minority owner of the pipeline, a subsidiary of Chevron, also asked for regulatory permission to transfer its 5% interest to a small, Texas-based firm, Pontem.
Doyon already has significant interests in energy-related businesses, including a pipeline company that moves oil between the trans-Alaska pipeline system and a refinery.
The RCA application says Doyon’s subsidiary will assume “full responsibility and liability” for its newly owned share of the pipeline, including for decommissioning costs. But ConocoPhillips, whose affiliate will own 75% of the pipeline after the transaction, will continue to manage operations.
MINING:
Can an Alaska nickel mine capture CO2?
Shane Lasley, North of 60 Mining News, September 18, 2024
Alaska Energy Metals has partnered with the Colorado School of Mines and Virginia Polytechnic Institute to answer that question.
Alaska Energy Metals Sept. 18 announced that it has partnered with the Colorado School of Mines and Virginia Polytechnic Institute to determine how much carbon dioxide a mine at its Nikolai project in Alaska could capture and store while also providing a domestic supply of nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum group metals (PGMs) for the energy transition.
Research has shown that ultramafic rocks, such as those found within the more than 8-billion-pound Eureka nickel deposit at Nikolai, are enriched with magnesium minerals that react with CO2 in the atmosphere. This interaction locks up the CO2 in carbonate rocks and stores the greenhouse gas for geological scales of time.
Under natural conditions, this carbon sequestration process is limited due to a lack of contact between atmospheric CO2 and ultramafic rocks that are mostly buried beneath Earth’s surface. Digging up these CO2-absorbing rocks and then crushing them to extract the desired minerals creates the ideal exposure needed for the rock-forming carbon sequestration process to take place.
Last year, the Colorado School Mines received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop a novel technological solution for assessing the CO2-absorbing potential of mining ultramafic deposits enriched with nickel, copper, cobalt, and PGMs. The cutting-edge scanning technology and advanced machine learning algorithms developed under this program are now being applied to Alaska Energy Metals’ Nikolai project.
“We are extremely excited to engage in this partnership with Alaska Energy Metals on a real-life project that will potentially provide a secure domestic source of energy-related metals while simultaneously sequester carbon to slow global warming,” said Colorado School of Mines Professor of Economic Geology Thomas Monecke.
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POLITICS:
Democrats are outspending Republicans nationwide
Alex Fitpatrick, Axios, September 23, 2024
Democrats are outspending Republicans on political ads by about a half-billion dollars since Aug. 1, according to data from analytics platform AdImpact.
By the numbers: As of Sept. 20, Democrats have spent $1.8 billion on ads booked for Aug. 1 through Nov. 5, compared to $1.3 billion for Republicans.
- That includes spending by campaigns (from the presidential candidates down to lower-ballot hopefuls) as well as by outside groups.
- Campaigns alone, Democrats have spent nearly $700 million, compared to almost $400 million by Republicans.
Zoom in: Both parties are spending the most on ads running in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Phoenix, among the metro areas tracked by AdImpact.
What’s next: With about a month and a half until Election Day, there’s no end in sight for campaign ads — especially if you live in a swing state.