5 spunti per approfondire (42/2023)

La rubrica settimanale con i consigli di lettura di RivistaEnergia.it, dall’Europa e dal mondo. Forse non le notizie più eclatanti, ma proprio per questo interessanti da approfondire. Settimana 42/2023

“Orano SA will spend €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion) to expand a uranium-enrichment plant in southern France as countries in the West seek to reduce their reliance on Russian nuclear fuel. The investment will boost production at the Georges Besse 2 facility by more than 30%, Orano said in a statement. The site will eventually process enough uranium to generate nuclear power for the equivalent of 120 million households a year, it said. The US and Europe have refrained from sanctioning Russian nuclear behemoth Rosatom Corp. on concern that power supplies to hundreds of millions of people would be at risk. Still, they are increasingly cutting ties with the Kremlin, which has been curbing natural gas flows to Europe following its invasion of Ukraine.”

France Plans $1.8 Billion Uranium Plant Expansion to Cut Reliance on Russia
Articolo – Bloomberg

“The Biden administration and the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro have agreed to a deal in which the United States would ease sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry and the authoritarian state would allow a competitive, internationally monitored presidential election next year, according to two people familiar with the breakthrough talks. The sanctions relief is to be announced after Maduro’s government and Venezuela’s U.S.-backed opposition sign an agreement to include commitments by the socialist government to allow a freer vote in 2024, the people said. They are expected to do that during a meeting in Barbados on Tuesday with U.S. officials in attendance. Maduro, who claimed victory in a 2018 election widely viewed as fraudulent, would agree to a process for lifting bans on opposition candidates running, one of the people said, though it is not clear how quickly that process would take place. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks.”

U.S. to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil for freer presidential election
Articolo – The Washington Post

“We came to tell Dina Boluarte to deliver on her campaign promise of cancelling the Tía María project,” Meza said, referring to the $1.4bn Tía María greenfield copper mine, which is owned by Southern Copper and sits by the Tambo valley in the Arequipa region’s Islay province. Work on the planned mine was first halted more than a decade ago, with farming communities saying it would deplete water supplies. The company redesigned the project to include a desalination plant and a dam, but deadly protests have continued for several years and farming leaders remain opposed. “Tía María no va” (“Tía María is a no-go”) reads faded graffiti in Cocachacra. “Tía María is paralysed; we are in a continuous fight against it,” says Meza, who is the leader of an anti-mining group of farmers in Cocachacra, south-east Peru. “There’s willingness from the government to impose themselves so this mine will activate. But they know they will find conflict here.”

Protests threaten to dent the outlook for Peruvian copper
Articolo – Financial Times

“China’s “Shuangtan” (dual carbon) pledge is the most consequential climate commitment made by the Chinese government. Announced in September 2020, it commits China to reaching peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. With the nature of the Chinese policy system, however, top-down pledges can be received with varying levels of actual policy implementation. This Paper considers how – three years on – Shuangtan priorities have been reflected in two key areas of Chinese energy/climate policy: the power sector and renewable energy manufacturing. In each of these areas, this Paper details specific post-Shuangtan policy changes. In particular, how these post-Shuangtan policy actions differ from their pre-Shuangtan predecessors, and what they indicate about the future of power sector and renewable energy manufacturing policy. In these changes, it also seeks to evaluate whether Shuangtan represented a ‘critical juncture’ in specific areas of Chinese energy/climate policy, and offers early thoughts on what the first few years of Shuangtan implementation indicate about Shuangtan’s long-term implementation.”

Three years on: Assessing power sector and renewable energy manufacturing policy in China since the announcement of dual carbon goals
Ricerca – The Oxford Institute for Energy Strategy

“From this historical perspective, the 2021–2023 fossil fuel shock is not a surprise. When Gazprom chose to limit its gas supplies to the EU as early as the summer of 2021, the EU gas price increased sharply, before skyrocketing in December 2021. When Russia then chose to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, it caught gas markets by surprise. In April 2022, as the Russian army was defeated by Ukrainian forces in the north of Ukraine, Putin shifted gear to a protracted war, and further weaponised the EU’s dependence on Russian gas by cutting all pipeline Russian gas supplies to several EU member states, including Bulgaria, Poland, Finland and Denmark. Meanwhile, global oil prices were rising from their low Covid-19 lockdown levels, even if they remained well below the 2012–2014 average.”

Overcoming the great fossil fuel shock: building an energy system that serves a free, secure and green Europe
Capitolo di Libro – Forging Europe’s Leadership

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