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An oil well pump jack operated by Chevron Corp. in San Ardo, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 27, 2021.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Biden administration on Friday proposed reforms to the country’s oil and gas leasing program that would raise costs for energy companies to drill on public lands and water, but stopped short of recommending an end to leasing on public lands.

The long-anticipated report, published by the Interior Department, recommended increasing royalty rates and rents for drillers, prioritizing leasing in areas with known resource potential and avoiding leasing in areas that can be developed to protect wildlife habitat, recreation and cultural resources.

The report completes a review that President Joe Biden ordered in January. The president directed a halt to new federal oil and gas lease sales on public lands and waters, but a Louisiana federal judge blocked the administration’s suspension in June.

Drilling on public lands generates billions of dollars in revenue but contributes to roughly a quarter of the country’s planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The report did not indicate that the administration would take climate change impact into account when approving new leases.

The report said the federal oil and gas program, which is enshrined in law, fails to provide a fair return to taxpayers and inadequately accounts for its harmful impact on the environment. It called for new rules to hike royalty rates, bonding rates and other fees for drillers. The minimum royalty rate is currently 12.5% for oil and gas production on federal lands.

“Our nation faces a profound climate crisis that is impacting every American,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. “The Interior Department has an obligation to responsibly manage our public lands and waters – providing a fair return to the taxpayer and mitigating worsening climate impacts – while staying steadfast in the pursuit of environmental justice.”

Environmentalists argue the report offers little on the climate impacts of drilling and contradicts Biden’s vows to end drilling on public lands. Some groups note that the report was released during a long holiday weekend when fewer people would notice it.

“Releasing this completely inadequate report over a long holiday weekend is a shameful attempt to hide the fact that President Biden has no intention of fulfilling his promise to stop oil and gas drilling on our public lands,” Mitch Jones, policy director at the environmental group Food & Water Watch, said in a statement.

“A minor increase in the royalties paid by climate polluters will have zero impact on combating the climate crisis, and will in effect make the federal government more dependent on fossil fuels as a source of revenue,” Jones said.

The report comes after the president on Tuesday ordered the release of 50 million barrels of crude from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a global effort by energy-consuming nations to calm this year′s rapid rise in fuel prices.

The Biden administration has approved 3,091 new drilling permits on public lands at a rate of 332 per month, a faster pace than the Trump administration’s 300 permits per month. The administration recently opened more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to auction for oil and gas drilling, a record offshore sale that will lock in years of greenhouse gas emissions.

The permit approvals for fossil fuel production are at odds with Biden’s climate agenda, which involves a commitment to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

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Tesla is forced to remove 64 Superchargers on NJ Turnpike, Musk claims ‘corruption’

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Tesla is forced to remove 64 Superchargers on NJ Turnpike, Musk claims 'corruption'

Tesla is being forced to remove 64 Superchargers at stations along the New Jersey Turnpike as the local authorities have decided to go with another provider.

Elon Musk claimed corruption without any evidence.

The New Jersey Turnpike is a system of controlled-access toll roads that consists of a 100-mile section of important New Jersey highways. 

In 2020, Tesla signed an agreement with the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA)and built 64 Supercharger stalls at 8 stations along the turnpike.

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The agreement has now expired, and instead of renewing it, the authority decided to give an exclusive agreement to Applegreen, which already operates in all service areas on the turnpike.

Tesla issued a statement saying that it is disappointed with the situation, but that it has prepared for this by building new stations off the turnpike for the last few years:

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned. We have been preparing for 3 years for this potential outcome by building 116 stalls off the New Jersey Turnpike, ensuring no interruption for our customers. The map below outlines the existing replacement Superchargers, and Trip Planner will adjust automatically.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk went a step further and called it “corruption” without any evidence.

The automaker’s agreement with NJTA expired, and they decided to go with a sole provider. Applegreen will reportedly deploy chargers at all 21 turnpike service stops.

Here are Tesla’s replacement Superchargers off the turnpike:

Electrek’s Take

I don’t like the decision from the Turnpike authorities. More chargers are better than fewer chargers. However, I also don’t like Musk calling everything he doesn’t like fraud or corruption.

While I agree with Tesla that it is unreasonable to force them to remove the stations, it appears to be an oversight on Tesla’s part not to have included stipulations in their agreement to prevent such a scenario from happening in the first place.

Who signs a deal to deploy millions of dollars worth of charging equipment with only the right to operate them there for 5 years?

It looks like Tesla knew this was coming since it specifically built several new Supercharger stations off the turnpike to prepare for this.

On the other hand, I don’t like the Turnpike Authority using the term “universal charger” as if this is a positive for Applegreen. They are going to use CCS, and everyone is moving to NACS in North America.

Yes, for a while, only Tesla owners will have to use adapters, but that will soon change and the current NACS Supercharger will be even more useful.

At the end of the day, the stations are already there. Let them operate them.

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E-quipment highlight: ZQUIP heavy equipment battery swap demo [video]

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E-quipment highlight: ZQUIP heavy equipment battery swap demo [video]

ZQUIP is working hard to bring more smart, efficient, modular power solutions to commercial job sites everywhere – and at the core of their vision for the future is battery-swap technology. You can see just how easy it is make that happen here.

MOOG Construction’s energy skunkworks ZQUIP made headlines last year by bringing the cordless power tool battery model to the world of industrial-grade heavy equipment.

“The 700V ZQUIP Energy Modules are at the core of this innovation, said Chris LaFleur, managing director for QUIP. “ZQUIP modules are interchangeable across any machine we convert regardless of size, type, or manufacturer, and will enable a level of serviceability, runtime, and value that is far greater than current battery solutions.”

At this year’s bauma equipment show in Munich, Germany, however, ZQUIP followed up that headline by making it even easier for job sites to make every kilowatt count by enabling them to switch from diesel power, to electric, and back again, on the same machine, on the job site.

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Why you want that


ZQUIP Adds Diesel Option to All-Electric Construction Vehicle Conversions
ZQUIP generator prototype on Caterpillar excavator; via ZQUIP.

Most machines on most sites sit idle most of the time, but converting all those machines to battery electric power means that megawatts of battery capacity are being wasted. By utilizing swappable batteries, job sites can do what technicians and contractors have been doing for years with power tools: quickly get the energy they need to the tool they need when they need it, without the need to have a dedicated battery for every tool.

If you need to be able to run the machine non-stop and don’t have a reliable way to recharge your batteries quickly enough, a 140 kW diesel generator is built into a package the same size and shape as the batteries. In fact, if you look closely at the CASE excavator below (on the right), the “battery” on the right is, in fact, a diesel Energy Module.

The demo video, below, shows a pair of CASE-based electric excavators – one wheeled, one tracked – operating on ZQUIP’s Energy Modules. It takes less than two minutes to remove one battery, and presumably about the same time to swap another one in, for a 5 (ish) minute swap.

Even if you call it ten, by eliminating the need to get the entire machine up and out for charging (or for service, if there’s an issue with the battery/controllers), the ZQUIP battery swap construction equipment solution seems like a good one.

ZQUIP HDEV battery swap


SOURCE | IMAGES: ZQUIP.


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Trump administration is convinced massive Alaska energy project will find investors despite steep cost

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Trump administration is convinced massive Alaska energy project will find investors despite steep cost

Energy Sec. Wright on Alaska LNG project: Financing is straight forward if you have customers

The Trump administration is confident that a massive liquified natural gas project in Alaska will find investors despite its enormous cost.

President Donald Trump has pushed Alaska LNG as a national priority since taking office. Alaska has already spent years trying to build an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope above the Arctic Circle south to the Cook Inlet, where the gas would be cooled and shipped to U.S. allies in Asia.

But Alaska LNG has never gotten off the ground due to a stratospheric price tag of more than $40 billion. Trump has pushed Japan and South Korea in particular to invest in the project, threatening them with higher tariffs if they don’t offer trade deals that suit him.

“If you get the commercial offtakers for the gas, financing is pretty straightforward,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. “There [are] countries around the world looking to shrink their trade deficit with the United States, and of course, a very easy way to do that is to buy more American energy,” Wright said.

Energy analysts, however, are skeptical of the project. Alaska LNG “doesn’t have a clear cut commercial logic,” Alex Munton, director of global gas and LNG research at Rapidan Energy, told CNBC in April.

“If it did, it would have had a lot more support than it has thus far, and this project has been on the planning board for literally decades,” Munton said.

Defense Department support

Wright said the project would be built in stages and initially serve domestic demand in Alaska, which faces declining natural gas supplies in the Cook Inlet. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Department of Defense is ready to support the project with its resources.

“They’re ready to sign on to take an offtake agreement from this pipeline to get gas to our super strategic, important bases across Alaska,” Burgum said of the Pentagon in a CNBC interview at Prudhoe Bay.

Interior Sec. Burgum on Alaska LNG pipeline: Permits virtually all in line, issued and ready to go

Alaska LNG, if completed, would deliver U.S. natural gas to Japan in about eight days, compared to about 24 days for U.S. Gulf Coast exports that pass through the congested Panama Canal, Burgum said. It would also avoid contested waters in the South China Sea that LNG exports from the Middle East pass through, the interior secretary said.

Wright said potential Asian investors have questions about the timeline and logistics of Alaska LNG. The pipeline could start delivering LNG to southern Alaska in 2028 or 2029, with exports to Asia beginning sometime in the early 2030s, Wright said.

Glenfarne Group, the project’s lead developer, told CNBC in April that a final investment decision is expected in the next six to 12 months on the leg of a proposed pipeline that runs from the North Slope to Anchorage. Glenfarne is a privately-held developer, owner and operator of energy infrastructure based in New York City and Houston.

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