President Donald Trump launched a veiled attack on environmental “alarmists” in a speech to business and political leaders in Davos, taking a swipe at the World Economic Forum’s key focus this year. Speaking at the Swiss resort town on Tuesday, Trump invoked those who predicted an “overpopulation crisis” and the end of oil, saying: “These alarmists always demand the same thing, absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives.” He also said: “This is not a time for pessimism, this is a time for optimism. Fear and doubt is not a good thought process, because this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action, but to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse.” The World Economic Forum audience included 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, who brought a stark message to the business elite gathering in Davos: Everybody is talking about climate change, but nobody is doing anything. Trump has mocked Thunberg on Twitter. The forum is sounding alarm bells on climate change. This year and for the first time on record, environmental risks occupy the group’s top five long-term concerns, while corporate executives say they’re increasingly concerned about environmental issues. Trump’s remarks were largely focused on America’s economy as an example to other nations, which he urged to cut regulations and taxes. Trump sought to take credit for a booming economy, repeating his reelection arguments just hours before the US Senate was set to formally start his impeachment trial. “I’m proud to declare that the US is in the midst of an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before,” Trump said. “We’ve regained our stride, rediscovered our spirit.” Later in the speech, he said “pessimists” can’t be allowed to reverse course: “We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country or eradicate our liberty.” The president’s record on the environment is under attack from Democratic challengers ahead of November elections. Some are calling for significant policy changes to deal with climate change. Trump claims credit for overseeing an economy enjoying its longest-ever expansion, with an unemployment rate that fell to a five-decade low after tax cuts and spending increases. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which Trump regularly cites as a marker of success, is up about 25% from a year ago. Trump described low unemployment rates for African Americans and women. But his fight with China over trade and other protectionist policies have created uncertainty among businesses, especially manufacturers. Despite last week’s interim trade deal with Beijing, the International Monetary Fund on Monday predicted economic growth will moderate to 2% this year and 1.7% in 2021 from 2.3% in 2019 as fiscal stimulus wanes. In his speech at the Swiss resort, Trump said: “The American dream is back, bigger better and stronger than ever before.” President Trump comments on the state of the US-China trade relations during his address at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. The president repeated his grievances with the Fed, saying it raised rates too quickly and lowered them too slowly. Trump said in his speech that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping “love each other” even after their fight over trade. “He’s for China and I’m for the US, but other than that, we love each other,” Trump said. Trump is due to hold bilateral meetings with Iraqi President Barham Salih, Paki- stan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Swiss President Simonetta Som- maruga and Nechirvan Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, according to the White House. Trump will also meet with the forum’s executive chairman, Klaus Schwab, and has said he’ll meet with business leaders, too. He leaves Davos on Wednesday. This is Trump’s second visit as president to the annual gathering of business chiefs, central bankers and foreign leaders. Hanging over the trip this time, however, is his impeachment trial set to formally begin in the Senate. Trump will almost certainly be acquitted by the Republican majority in the Senate, but the trial may produce surprises.

Capturing carbon dioxide from the fossil-fuel industry is key to slowing dangerous global warming, energy chiefs said in Davos as climate concerns dominated the annual business forum more than ever before. Oil and gas producers are under mounting pressure to help prevent a damaging rise in temperatures, and carbon capture is increasingly luring investors as a tool to curb emissions. Whether pulled from the exhaust of smokestacks or from the open air, the CO2 can be buried underground or used to extract oil. “There are investors that care, that want to protect our environment; those investors are starting to make a diff erence for us,” Vicki Hollub, chief executive off icer of Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp, said on a panel in Davos. “Within two years we will be building the largest direct air capture facility in the Permian.” Occidental’s air capture site will separate carbon dioxide directly from ambient air. The CO2 can then be injected into oil reservoirs to boost output in Texas’s Permian Basin. “If we can perfect direct air capture, then we can use it anywhere,” Hollub said. Climate concerns dominated the panel discussion, and run through the entire program of this year’s World Economic Forum. Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg spoke to a packed room in the WEF’s opening session, issuing a sharp rebuke to leaders over the world’s failure to curtail emissions. Also addressing the climate challenges facing the oil and gas industry was Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. Birol, like Hollub, touted the potential of carbon capture to help curtail emissions. Fatih Birol, IEA executive director, discusses “peak oil” and the need for carbon capture and storage. He speaks with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua.

Standard Chartered Plc plans to fa- cilitate $35bn of funding for clean technology by 2025, joining rival banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc that are stepping up their climate-change promises. The London-based bank also vowed to only support those clients who are moving to generate less than 10% of their earnings from thermal coal by 2030, according to a statement on Tuesday. The new target ex- tends the previous 2016 goal that foresaw $4bn of green funding by 2020. “There has not been suffi cient invest- ment into this sector across emerging Asia, Africa and the Middle East,” the bank said. Chief executive offi cer Bill Winters said Standard Chartered is the fi rst bank ac- tive in emerging markets to “confi rm that we will be out of thermal coal by 2030.” Emerging markets are the focus of Stand- ard Chartered’s business, and generally rely more heavily on coal to generate elec- tricity than developed countries do. The bank also said it will withdraw from three coal-fi red power projects that it agreed to fi nance before revising its poli- cies last year. On Monday, Goldman Sachs announced a revision to its own policies, pledging to avoid directly fi nancing new thermal coal mines and upstream Arctic oil exploration. Standard Chartered also released a re- port detailing its progress aligning its lending portfolio with the goals of the Par- is Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to signifi cantly below 2 degrees. Standard Chartered’s plan to withdraw support from clients that aren’t transi- tioning away from coal will be implement- ed in phases, starting in January 2021. In 2018, the bank said it would prohibit direct fi nancing for new coal-fi red power plants.

Ship owners and refiners are facing the biggest change to their industries in a generation: strict environmental rules for vessel fuel that kick in on January 1, 2020. Technically, it’s just a cap on sulphur content, but the repercussions are sweeping. Governments and companies across the globe have raced to prepare amid concerns about fuel shortages that could affect thousands of ships. Consumers, from cruise ships to truckers, will face higher prices. Some companies are already making a fortune. But the health benefits are expected to be substantial around the globe. If adopted widely – and enforcement is an open question – it may be the biggest single global change for air quality ever.

1. What are the new rules?
Fuel must have a maximum sulphur content of 0.5%, down from the current 3.5% limit in most cases. Known as IMO 2020, the regulation is set by the International Maritime Organization, a UN agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping as well as marine pollution by ships. Sulphur emissions are linked to acid rain and medical conditions such as asthma and heart disease.

2. Why does shipping cause pollution?
Because ships use heavy fuel oil – the gunk that’s left over in the refining process once more valuable, less sulphurous products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel have been squeezed out of crude oil. Although IMO rules have progressively tightened sulphur limits since 2005, there’s a long way to go: A Finnish study in 2016 estimated that air pollution from ships under current guidelines would contribute to more than 570,000 premature deaths worldwide between 2020 and 2025.

3. How are refiners affected by shipping rules?
Even though the rules apply specifically to ships, those vessels have to get their fuel from somewhere. Simply put, if refiners can make more IMO-compliant fuel, they stand to make more money. Complex refiners, such as those on the US Gulf Coast, would benefit. So-called simple plants, which can’t adjust as easily, could be at risk. Demand for so-called sweet (low sulphur) crude such as Brent is set to rise, at the expense of sour (high sulphur) crude produced mainly in the Middle East. Refiners’ economics from making a range of fuels – from gasoline to jet fuel – are being upended.

4. Which fuel will shippers switch to?
As of now, they seem to be favouring a somewhat broad group of products called very-low sulphur ship fuel, or VLSFO. Another option is marine gasoil, a distillate-based fuel. For this reason, analysts expect distillate demand to increase when the rules take effect. However, no single, IMO-compliant benchmark fuel has emerged. The market is still evolving, and companies including  Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc plan to offer a range of products. Shell has already made $1bn from fuel oil trading this year.

5. Will there be enough
compliant fuel?
It depends who you ask. In recent months, a flotilla of vessels storing compliant fuel has gathered near Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering port. Shipping company Euronav NV has even filled a supertanker with oil to help it comply with the rules and sent it to the region – for a profit of $52mn by one estimate. In other places, such as Gibraltar, there’s been a back-up of vessels. Researcher EnSys Energy & Systems Inc – an early sceptic of fuel availability – thinks that even if there’s enough compliant-fuel at the outset, stockpiles will wind down within months.

6. Do shippers have any other options?
Yes, they can install pollution-reducing scrubbers that can handle oil with a higher-sulphur content. But here’s the thing: Fitting a scrubber can cost as much as $6mn per ship. New orders for scrubbers have dwindled, and only 3,000 new orders are expected to be installed by the end of the year, according to BloombergNEF. That means the vast majority of ships will need to switch to using more expensive, low-pollutant fuel.

7. How will these changes be enforced?
The IMO says it expects strict enforcement of the rules, and it’s up to ports to make sure that happens. Some, such as Greece, have pledged strict adherence and potential sanctions for violators. Others, like Fujairah, the Middle East’s main bunkering hub, are taking a much softer approach. In places like Denmark and Norway, drone aircraft are being used to sniff out those who run afoul of the IMO’s mandate. Still, it’s going to be tricky – about half of the IMO’s members didn’t sign up for the switch.

8. Who will suffer?
Potentially anyone who buys petroleum products – including cruise ships, trucking companies and automobile drivers. That’s because the extra demand for cleaner fuel from shippers could mean refiners may produce lower quantities of products such as jet fuel and gasoline. Some shippers contend that the new rules have the potential to upend world trade, since the cost of compliance will be high for many.

* Capacity tax to be phased out over 2 years from 2017

* New reactors to be built to replace old ones (Adds Energy Minister comment, background)

STOCKHOLM, June 10 (Reuters) – Sweden said on Friday it would phase out some taxes on nuclear power and build new reactors to replace aging plants and secure energy supplies for decades to come.

Nuclear power providers in Sweden have said they would be forced to shut the country’s loss-making nuclear reactors unless a tax on nuclear capacity is abolished, risking a spike in electricity prices and energy shortages for industry.

“The aim is … to make sure we can always guarantee electricity at competitive prices, in a stable and sustainable way, both in the short and long term,” Energy Minister Ibrahim Baylan told reporters.

The tax, which brought in about 4 billion Swedish crowns ($488 million) in 2015, will be phased out over two years starting from 2017, but households will see their energy bills rise as Baylan said the government would increase taxes on energy users to make up for the nuclear tax. Heavy industry, however, would be excluded from the tax rise.

In a broad deal agreed with the main opposition parties, the government also said it would allow up to 10 new reactors to be built as the country closes its old plants, built in the 1970s and 80s.

The tax on capacity – which was increased last year – has hurt profitability at plants already under pressure from low market prices and the need for expensive upgrades to meet tougher safety standards since Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall and Germany’s E.ON have said they will shut four of Sweden’s 10 nuclear reactors earlier than previously planned. One of them was shut last year.

In April, Vattenfall said all the remaining six reactors would have to close by 2020 if the capacity tax was not abolished.

Nuclear plants produced around 34 percent of Sweden’s electricity in 2015.

The deal to end the tax is a blow for the Green Party, which wants nuclear power phased out as soon as possible and instigated the increase in the tax last year. ($1 = 8.1964 Swedish crowns) (Reporting by Johan Sennero; Editing by Simon Johnson and Susan Fenton)

KARACHI: When you think of electric vehicles, you think of Elon Musk, a noiseless Tesla and luxury more than zero emissions. But today the government wants to use the same technology for the common man — to run bikes, rickshaws and even buses, jeeps and trucks. Will this transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles in Pakistan happen anytime soon?

Cities are witnessing the worst ever smog. This was followed by a climate march with youth demanding climate justice.

Thus the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government could not have chosen a better time than when the UN climate summit COP 25 is taking place to make a strong case against tailpipe emissions from urban transportation, a major contributor to air pollution and climate change.

Little wonder then they quickly got the nod of approval by the cabinet for the first national electric vehicle (EV) policy.

With 43 per cent of the airborne emissions in the country coming from the transport sector, federal Minister for Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said that transitioning to EV provided a “huge opportunity” for the country.

“These will have many advantages for Pakistan — it will reduce pollution, will cut the cost of fuel by 70pc thereby [leading to] huge saving for FFV (fossil fuel vehicle) owners, and will cut the country’s import bill tremendously.”

There are three million private cars and 20m motorcycles and motorised rickshaws plying the roads, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, as cited in the Economic Survey 2018-19, mainly due to the absence of a good public transport system.

Riaz Haq, who has worked in various tech firms for 35 years in the Silicon Valley and is an EV enthusiast, said that with 32m households and 17.5m motorcycles registered in Pakistan, the motorcycle ownership increased from 41pc in 2015 to 53pc in 2018.

The new policy envisions using electricity to get 100,000 cars, 500,000 two- and three-wheelers, 1,000 buses and trucks to ply the roads in the next five years. By 2030 it sees 30pc of all new cars, big and small trucks, vans, and jeeps and 50pc of all two-, three- and four-wheelers to be electric vehicles reducing tailpipe emissions by 65pc. By 2040, if all goes well, 90pc of all vehicles on the roads will be EVs.

“The PM wants all new buses coming on the road to be electric hybrid — run both on electricity and CNG (compressed natural gas),” said the federal minister.

Most experts are lauding the policy as a step in the right direction. “It is a forward-looking step needed to deal with climate concerns from growing transport sector emissions with rapidly rising vehicle ownership,” Mr Haq wrote in his blog.

Another proponent for EVs, Islamabad-based energy expert Vaqar Zakaria, said that “surplus power generation capacity, building off-peak demand for better utilisation of generation capacity which also brings down generation costs, poor urban air quality, high levels of noise from traffic and safer cars” are some of the reasons to make the move.

The automobile industry remains sceptical though. “I would love to see EV launched in Pakistan, but it means developing a huge set-up anew,” said Juzer Amreliwala, the chief executive officer of a Honda partner in Karachi.

“On the face of it, it looks great. But establishing proper after-sales set-up requires both capital and human investment. Although most dealerships have come quite far in technology development, much training is still needed,” he added.

Aware of the infrastructure that will be needed for EVs, the minister for climate change sees it as an opportunity with a whole new service industry and numerous livelihood options opening up. “Pakistan is thirsting for new business opportunities and markets. If we build our capacity technologically, Pakistan can become a hub for exporting EVs — especially two- and three-wheelers,” Mr Aslam said.

However, a potential problem with the policy is the plethora of government supervisors — nine ministries, the Higher Education Commission, the State Bank of Pakistan and various authorities in energy sectors. “This industry transcends so many domains that all these stakeholders had to be included,” ex­­plained Mr Aslam. “Interaction and cooperation between stakeholders are the mark of good governance.”

Vaqar Zakaria warns of the “vested interests” who may not like the transition. “Those that sell low quality fuel and cheat on quantity sold will not like it, the refiners will not like it, the car traders will not like it as the EVs will last longer, the industry as it presently will not like it, the FBR may say the government will lose taxes on imported fuel which are huge at the moment and a significant source of revenue for the government. But as a consumer I will be delighted… if they only let me import EVs and E-bikes at reasonable cost.”

Pakistan is entering into a new era of attracting power projects through competitive bidding to provide cheaper electricity to end-con- sumers, as Sindh government is all set to auction the fi rst-ever project through the bidding process by March 2020. To date, the country has at- tracted power projects by off er- ing incentives to investors un- der the cost-plus tariff formula, which ensured a fi xed internal rate of return (IRR) to investors.

The achievement of sur- plus installed capacity of power production in recent times al- lowed authorities to make a shift towards new power projects through the tariff -based com- petitive bidding. “We are set to auction the fi rst 50-megawatt (MW) solar power project at Manjhand (district Jamshoro) through competitive bidding by February-March,” Sindh Solar Energy Project (SSEP) Project Director Mehfooz A Qazi said. The 50MW project is part of the planned 400MW solar pow- er park in Sindh that is estimated to attract new investment of around $250mn. “We aim to auction all the potential 400MW solar power projects by 2021 and start sup- plying electricity to the national power grid within the next fi ve years (2023-24),” he said. The World Bank is providing fi nancial and technical support for establishing the solar park. “Word Bank has provided an as- sistance of $100mn for four dif- ferent solar power projects, in- cluding $30mn for establishing the 400MW solar park,” he said. In this backdrop, the energy department of the government of Sindh appointed a consorti- um of foreign and local advisers to auction the 400MW power projects.

The consortium comprises Bridge Factor (Pakistan) and Tractebel Engie (Germany) in association with Renewable Resources Limited (Pakistan), Ashurst Law (Singapore) and Axis Law (Pakistan). On behalf of the government of Sindh, Qasim inked the con- tract with the consortium to hire its services in the presence of Provincial Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh at Energy Department. The project director hoped the solar projects would attract an investment of around $250mn, considering the country has re- cently attracted $38mn invest- ment for a 50MW solar project under the old formula of cost- plus tariff . “We are highly hopeful the projects will provide cheaper and clean energy in the country,” he said. Earlier, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Ne- pra) had announced an upfront tariff of 5.23 cents per unit (Kilo- watt per hour) to attract solar projects under the old formula of cost-plus tariff . “The competi- tive bidding will surely attain a comparatively cheaper tariff than the upfront tariff ,” he said. The competitive bidding process allows the Sindh gov- ernment to accept the lowest tariff -bid from new potential investors. Later-on, it may ask other in- vestors to match the lowest bid to become part of the 400MW solar park. He said the investors would off er the much cheaper tariff than the upfront one, as cost of solar power projects has mas- sively gone down over a period of time. “The government awarded a (high) tariff of 15-16 cents per unit for the fi rst solar park (Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park of 100MW set up in Bahawalpur, Punjab) years back. The cost of solar power projects has further cut down since Nepra approved the up- front tariff of 5.23 cents per unit for solar power,” he said. Solar remains one of the low- cost sources of electricity gen- eration in the energy mix in the country. More importantly, the federal government has planned to in- crease the share of solar power to around 25% by 2025 compared to around 4-5% at present. Qazi said the demand for elec- tricity has been increasing by 5-7% per year. “The surge in de- mand may come comparatively higher and quicker considering the country is set to see acceler- ation in economic growth going forward.”

Solar customers increasingly want panels that capture energy from both their sunny and shady sides, as plummeting component prices finally allow such products to be cost-effective.

Panels that are bi-facial, as the technology is known, will probably become the industry standard, according to one of the world’s biggest solar manufacturers, LONGi Green Energy Technology Co. They already dominate in the Middle East and are making inroads in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, according to another top maker.

The shift is being driven by ever-cheaper parts, which are making the products profitable even though adding solar glass on the underside of panels boosts power output by less than 10%, according to BloombergNEF. Bi-facials will likely make up 15% of the global market next year, up from 4% this year, BloombergNEF analyst Wang Xiaoting said Tuesday at the research firm’s annual summit in Shanghai.

Germany’s onshore wind crisis, which is already cutting into company profits and costing jobs, may also begin to weaken defenses against blackouts.

That’s the conclusion of analysts who see electricity risks mounting in Europe’s biggest economy, where construction of new onshore wind parks has dropped to a standstill because of a flood of environmental complaints. German industry will need new power sources in coming years to ensure security of supply as coal and nuclear stations are decommissioned.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is trying to coordinate the shutdown of thermal plants with a build-up of clean power to avoid potential supply shortages, said McKinsey & Co. Senior Partner Thomas Vahlenkamp. But that “entails pushing ahead with reaching clean energy targets — especially turning around stalled onshore wind,” he said.

Coal power will start to come offline next year and Germany forsees completing its full exit from nuclear energy by the end of 2022. Those two sources of energy comprise about 43% of German power currently available around-the-clock that will disappear by 2030, according to Vahlenkamp.

Merkel’s coalition government has set an ambitious green power growth target. It wants to generated almost two-thirds of its electricity with renewables over the next decade from about two-fifths today. Reaching that goal implies onshore wind adding about 4.6 gigawatts of fresh power annually.

The pace of net new onshore installations dropped to 0.3 gigawatts in January to June, down from 5.3 gigawatts in 2017 and 2.4 gigawatts last year. The drop in construction is already hurting turbine maker Enercon GmbH, which has a strong focus on the German wind market.

Until now, Germans have enjoyed one of the most resilient power grids in Europe. Consumers experienced just 12 minutes of power outages last year, according to the latest report of the Council of European Energy Regulators. That compares with some 6 hours of outages in Romania, the worst-performing country.

Merkel’s coalition is counting on restoring wind power’s trajectory by cutting through red tape that’s holding up projects. Moves to extend the national grid to accommodate more clean power and expanding storage won’t be ready until the middle of next decade.

Germany is counting on its status as a net exporter of power to help it brace it for potential shortfalls as nuclear and coal power wind down in stages. It transmitted about 53 terawatt-hours of power to its European partners in the nine months through September, compared with 31 terrawatt-hours of imports, monitoring group AG Energiebilanzen reported Monday.

Yet with manufacturing and construction responsible for producing a quarter of all German goods and services, the country can’t afford to bump into security of supply issues, according to the country’s Mechanical Engineering Industry Association VDMA, which wants the government to be more assertive in warding off potential blackouts.

Heading off blackouts and securing electricity “hangs on just how much power is available and when,” VDMA spokeswoman Beatrix Fontius wrote.

“Renewable power will in the near future shoulder the job of supplying power — for that reason it’s hard to understand why the government is dragging its feet,” she said.

Shell to buy floating offshore wind energy developer EOLFI
Shell has agreed to buy French floating wind power developer EOLFI for an undisclosed fee through its subsidiary Shell New Energies.

EOLFI was founded in 2004 and has a current portfolio of 145MW solar and 1GW onshore wind power. Since 2012, the company has focused on floating offshore windfarms in France and is part of a project with MHI Vestas to develop the pilot Groix & Belle-Ile windfarms off the coast of Brittany.

The deal is subject to the standard regulatory and ministerial approvals and should be completed by the end of December 2019.

Shell vice president for offshore wind Dorine Bosman said: “EOLFI has been a pioneer of floating wind development. We believe the union of EOLFI’s expertise and portfolio with Shell’s resources and ability to scale-up will help make electricity a significant business for Shell.”

Shell’s stock price currently stands at 2333p a share on the London Stock Exchange, lower than its 2019 peak of 2612p on 30 July.
EOLFI founder Alain Delsupexhe said: “EOLFI joins the Shell group at the time when the market of floating wind is taking off globally.

“EOLFI’s heritage in floating wind combined with Shell’s offshore expertise and global footprint will enable us to expand offshore, but also onshore with our wind and solar projects as part of the Shell New Energies division.”
Shell New Energies

Shell has moved into the renewable energy sector since it announced that it would invest $2bn a year into new energy schemes in 2018.

In 2019 it rebranded its energy supply business from First Utility to Shell Energy and switched its UK energy customers to 100% renewable energy, whilst Shell New Energies invested in a 20% in Indian solar company Orb Energy in October 2019.
Floating offshore wind farms

Floating offshore windfarms see wind turbines mounted on a floating buoyant structure, which require fewer materials to build and offer the ability to build offshore windfarms where water depths are as much as 50m to 60m.

The first operational floating offshore windfarm was the Hywind Pilot Park off the coast of Aberdeenshire in Scotland.

Several companies have signed agreements to develop and build more floating offshore windfarms. Equinor will invest $550m to build the 88MW Hywind Tampen windfarm to power its oil and gas operations in the Norwegian North Sea, whilst Ideol and Taisei signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in February 2019 to develop a floating windfarm in Japan.