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A coalition of 22 states and 7 local governments of the United States has filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) rule, which replaced the Clean Power Plan in June 2019, considering that the new rules would prolonge the country’s dependence on coal-fired power plants and obstruct the transition toward renewable power generation. In addition, it would fail to reduce CO2 emissions from the US power sector to the extent needed to limit global temperature increase to less than 2°C.

In late June 2019, the US EPA issued the final version of the ACE rule, which sets emission guidelines for states when developing plans to cut CO2 emissions at their coal-fired power plants and identifies heat rate improvements as the best system of emission reduction (BSER) for CO2 at coal-fired power plants. The EPA expects the ACE rule to cut CO2 emissions by 11 Mt in 2030, without harming coal-fired power plants that are facing the competition of gas and renewables. The Clean Power Plan aimed to slash power plant CO2 emissions by more than a third from 2005 levels by 2030, which would have forced utilities to drop coal in favour of cleaner fuels like natural gas. The regulation was never enacted because of lawsuits by some states and was stayed by the Supreme Court in 2016.

The 22 states and 7 local governments suing the EPA are the following: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, and the chief legal officers of Boulder, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and South Miami. 

The government of Vietnam has announced the acceleration of its privatisation programme and the sale of stakes in 93 state-owned companies by the end of 2020. The privatisation process would include Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries Holding Corp or Vinacomin, the country’s largest coal mining group, and two power plants owned by Electricity of Vietnam (EVN). …

According to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA), a relatively small number of investor-owned power utilities (168 distribution companies, i.e. 5.7% of the 2,938 power utilities operating in the United States) supplied 71% of all electricity customers in 2017 (110 millions out of 154 million customers).

The European Commission has decided to impose provisional duties ranging between 8% and 19% on imports of subsidised biodiesel from Indonesia, following a complaint from the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) that prompted the European Commission to launch an anti-subsidy investigation in December 2018.

The Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor has started producing oil from the Mariner field in the North Sea (United Kingdom), which has been developed with an investment of more than US$7.7bn. It is expected to produce 55,000 bbl/d on average and up to 70,000 bbl/d at peak production.

Japanese power utility Kansai Electric and trading house Marubeni have delayed the construction of a 1,300 MW coal-fired power project in the city of Akita in northern Japan, amid rising opposition to coal-fired power generation. The Akita project would consist of two 650 MW coal-fired units, that could be commissioned between 2023 and 2025.

The Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC) of Iran expects the Goreh-Jask oil pipeline project to be operational by March 2021. The 1 mb/d oil pipeline project is estimated at US$2bn and will strech over 1,000 km between Goreh in the Bushehr province of north-western Iran and Bandar-e-Jask in southern Iran, where storage tanks with a total capacity of 20 mbl will be set up.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has approved a AUD40m (US$27m) financing for the development of the first pumped-storage hydropower project in South Australia.. The project will have a capacity of at least 200 MW and will reach financial close by 30 June 2020. …