Energy security trumps climate concerns

The Spanish government released on June 17 its 182-page report on the April 28 electricity blackout.

Long passages are heavily redacted, including fully blacked out pages. As expected, the public is not allowed to understand the root cause of the blackout.

Spain’s blackout probe faults both the grid operator and utilities – the outage’s immediate cause was a surge in voltage on the grid – while, the investigation blamed ‘poor planning’ by Red Eléctrica and power plants. More details on what really happened will be revealed in court hearings.

Critical minerals constraints are a wake-up call for energy security. The imbalance is even more striking when you look at a broader set of energy-related minerals that are also used in sectors such as aerospace, defence and microchips.

The world cannot quit coal.

The ‘Coal-India’ position is that, “we need to grow as an energy sector to fulfil our nation’s demand. So we are bound to take this coal”.

China’s power demand has been growing faster than its economy since 2020 requiring all energy forms to grow, including coal.

Thus, it is unlikely that China will give up coal that quickly.

The IEA says China’s oil demand will peak in 2027, earlier than expected, due to EV growth.

Norway has committed to a $3.4bn full-scale industrial carbon capture project with billions in subsidies, to store 5mn tonnes of carbon dioxide annually under the sea.

The AI boom means the world’s data centres use more electricity than almost every country. Data centres already use more electricity than France and demand may triple by 2030.

Dr Charles Ellinas, Councilor, Atlantic Council

X: @CharlesEllinas