Tag: Energy and Power

Will Oil Prices Rise as the US-Iran Truce Frays? The Answer Lies With China.

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The passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz has been slowed significantly by the persistent cycle of hostility between the United States and Iran. But whether prices at the gas pump rise or fall will depend not only on how much oil flows out of the Persian Gulf but also on decisions made by China. Typically the world’s largest oil importer, China slashed purchases this spring, reducing demand so much that it prevented oil prices from soaring even higher earlier in the war. Now, one of the biggest…

China Moves the Price of Oil, Even When It Buys Less

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After the war in Iran cut off a fifth of the world’s oil supply, oil prices jumped, at one point reaching nearly $120 a barrel. But they didn’t spike higher, even though some analysts warned ominously of $200 oil, and prices have since come down. At more than $80 a barrel, oil is expensive. But it could be a lot higher. One major reason was China. The biggest oil buyer in the world, China has kept a lid on prices by rapidly reducing the amount of oil it imports. Before…

Trump Broke the World Order. Now What?

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Adam Tooze The Energy Giants Face Off Dr. Tooze is a professor of history at Columbia University. In the early 1910s, Winston Churchill ordered the conversion of Britain’s giant fleet of dreadnought battleships to oil fuel from coal. In so doing, the story goes, he ushered in the age of oil power. He also effectively anointed the United States — at the time the world’s largest producer of oil — as the 20th century’s natural hegemon. If global competition is inextricably interwoven with technology and energy, how states power themselves…

How China Went From Clean Energy Copycat to Global Innovator

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A single red rectangle with a patent drawing. 18 red rectangles. A grid of 5,206 red rectangles. A line chart that spans the years 2000 to 2022, with lines in different colors showing the trends in annual high quality patent filings from China, Japan, Europe, Korea, and the United States. Smart Grids Supercapacitors Methodology NYT

There’s a Race to Power the Future. China Is Pulling Away.

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ChinaSolar in Shanxi Province Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times U.S.Oil in California J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times Lithium-ion batteries China$65 bil.United States$3 bil.Asia$21 bil.Europe$26 bil.Africa$2 bil.Americas$17 bil.Oceania$1 bil. Solar panels and modules China$40 bil.United States$69 mil.Asia$11 bil.Europe$20 bil.Africa$2 bil.Americas$6 bil.Oceania$1 bil. Electric cars China$38 bil.United States$12 bil.Africa$281 mil.Oceania$3 bil.Europe$26 bil.Asia$14 bil.Americas$8 bil. Crude oil China$844 mil.United States$117 bil.Asia$50 bil.Americas$16 bil.Oceania$799 mil.Europe$52 bil.Africa$359 mil. Natural gas China$3 bil.United States$42 bil.Asia$13 bil.Europe$22 bil.Africa$3 mil.Americas$11 bil. Coal China$1 bil.United States$15 bil.Africa$718 mil.Americas$3 bil.Asia$8 bil.Europe$5 bil.Oceania$16 thou. ChinaElectric car…

How China Came to Dominate the World in Solar Energy

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China unleashed the full might of its solar energy industry last year. It installed more solar panels than the United States has in its history. It cut the wholesale price of panels it sells by nearly half. And its exports of fully assembled solar panels climbed 38 percent while its exports of key components almost doubled. Get ready for an even bigger display of China’s solar energy dominance. While the United States and Europe are trying to revive renewable energy production and help companies fend off bankruptcy, China is racing…

China Is Winning in Solar Power, but Its Coal Use Is Raising Alarms

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China is installing about as many solar panels and wind turbines as the rest of the world combined, and is on track to meet its target for clean energy six years early. It is using renewables to meet nearly all of the growth in its electricity needs. Yet there is another side to that rapid expansion, one that is causing consternation in Washington at a critical period of climate diplomacy: China is also building new power plants that burn coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, at a pace that…

Why What We Thought About the Global Economy Is No Longer True

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When the world’s business and political leaders gathered in 2018 at the annual economic forum in Davos, the mood was jubilant. Growth in every major country was on an upswing. The global economy, declared Christine Lagarde, then the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, “is in a very sweet spot.” Five years later, the outlook has decidedly soured. “Nearly all the economic forces that powered progress and prosperity over the last three decades are fading,” the World Bank warned in a recent analysis. “The result could be a lost…

China’s Oil and Gas Use Fell in 2022 for First Time in Decades

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With its economy severely hampered by stringent measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, China’s oil and gas consumption declined in 2022 for the first time in decades, the International Energy Agency said on Friday. But after China’s recent reversal of its lockdown policies, the agency’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said he expected a sharp rebound in demand, which could mean higher energy prices in other markets. The reduction in Chinese energy use last year kept world prices from soaring even higher after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, giving relief to…

The War in Ukraine Upended Energy Markets. What Does That Mean for the Climate?

Chin@Strategy

This article is part of our special report on the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. As world leaders, chief executives and nonprofit leaders descend on Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum next week, war will be raging about 1,000 miles away. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost one year ago has reordered the geopolitical landscape, sent ripples through the global economy and brought trench warfare back to Europe. Yet beyond the enormous human suffering and catastrophic damage inflicted on Ukraine, its people and…