Category: News

July 3 2017

Total Signs Iran’s First Major Energy Deal Since Curbs Eased

Iran signed a formal contract with Total SA to develop its share of the world’s biggest natural gas field — the first investment in the country by an international energy company since sanctions were eased last year. The 20-year deal with National Iranian Oil Co. and China National Petroleum Corp. to develop phase 11 of the South […]

July 3 2017

Elon Musk Says Model 3 Production Will Begin Friday

Tesla Inc.’s mission-critical Model 3 will start production on Friday before beginning a rapid ramp-up targeting a rate of 20,000 a month in December. “Expecting to complete” the first car Friday, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk wrote in a late-night Tweet, adding that it passed all its regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of […]

July 3 2017

Bets on Oil Rout Seen Peaking as Shale Boom Starts to Falter

Oil short-sellers have been on a roll, but their bets on declining prices may have begun to hit a wall. Hedge-fund wagers on lower West Texas Intermediate crude reached the highest level since August in the week ended June 27, after more than doubling in two months, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. The […]

June 30 2017

Solar Moves in a Curious Direction Since Trump Quit Paris Deal: Up

In the month since President Donald Trump vowed to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, shares of U.S. solar companies have taken a curious turn. They’ve gone sharply up. Sunrun Inc. and Vivint Solar Inc., the two largest independent U.S. rooftop panel installers, have embarked on their biggest rallies of the year since the president’s […]

June 30 2017

Electric Cars Are Coming Faster Than You Think, Enel Chief Says

The pace of adoption for electric cars over the next few years “could be surprising” and changing the global energy and auto industries faster than people expect, the boss of Europe’s largest utility said. Enel SpA is set to invest nearly 300 million euros ($341 million) to install about 12,000 recharging columns for electric cars […]

June 30 2017

Forget Cars, for One Spaniard the Autonomous Future Is Forklifts

In Burgos, a province in central Spain better known for archaeological digs and blood-sausages than for innovation, engineer Veronica Pascual is building automated vehicles. Not cars though, but fork-lifts, stackers and pallet trucks. Pascual, a 38-year-old aeronautical engineer, owns Asti, a company that produces so-called AGVs, or automated guided vehicles — mobile robots used in […]

June 30 2017

Ideas of the Week: Batteries, Billionaires, Robots, Aircraft Carriers

1) China’s Building the Equivalent of Three Gigafactories Elon Musk gets all the attention. But small companies in China have plans to build battery factories that can supply an additional 120 gigawatt-hours of power a year by 2021. By comparison, Musk’s Tesla plant in Nevada will have the capacity to make 35 gigawatts-hours of battery cells annually when finished […]

June 30 2017

South Korea Is Very, Very Interested in U.S. Natural Gas

If there’s one thing that became clear during the White House’s “Energy Week,” it’s that South Korea is really, really into U.S. natural gas. In less than 24 hours, South Korea’s energy companies had announced four partnerships with U.S. companies to explore opportunities in the U.S. natural gas business. Korea Gas Corp., the state-owned gas […]

June 30 2017

Trump Vows to Unleash the ‘Vast Energy Wealth’ of the U.S.

President Donald Trump said he is lifting an Obama-era policy that curtailed the financing of coal-fired power plants overseas, as he seeks to reorient the U.S. government away from fighting climate change and toward American “energy dominance.” “We are now on the cusp of a true energy revolution,” Trump told a crowd of executives, lobbyists and […]

June 30 2017

Anarchy on India’s Roads Has Driverless Car in a Jam

At a secret testing track outside Bangalore, an arm of the Tata conglomerate is recreating the jumble of Indian roads to develop an autonomous driving system. That means accounting for pedestrians darting through traffic at will, multiple lanes that merge without warning, poor signage and stray cattle lingering on the roadside. India’s push into the […]