Net Zero

1. The geopolitics of LNG
2. BP’s ‘precarious position’
3. US battery growth
4. Green ‘energy dominance’
5. Sand hits Europe solar

ConEd’s CEO on the future of the New York power grid.

LNG’s shifting geopolitics

US President Donald Trump’s trade war is driving a rethinking of the geopolitics of LNG. The White House has made an expansion of liquefied natural gas sales a centerpiece of its energy agenda, linking this to its efforts to rebalance trading relationships, and partners are taking notice: The European Union — which this week dispatched its trade commissioner to Washington — will revive an offer to buy more American gas, Politico reported, potentially aggregating demand in order to win a better deal, while Asian countries are also promising to buy more gas from the US in an effort to negotiate reduced tariffs.

In part, the moves have tangible significance: With power demand rising, national governments increasingly view gas as occupying a middle ground between dirtier fossil fuels such as coal, and cleaner but intermittent renewables. As a result, power generation capacity from gas-fired plants could rise by as much as 20% globally, according to Nikkei. Yet they also have political undertones, as Bloomberg noted: Trump “wants to score some political wins as tariffs roil the markets, and touting multibillion-dollar investment ‘deals’ is one way to do that, even if they subsequently fall apart.”

Tim Cawley, CEO, Consolidated Edison; Domenic Dell’Osso, Jr., President and CEO, Expand Energy; Iván Duque, Former President, Colombia; Andrew Ferguson, Chairman, FTC; Mark Nelson, Vice Chairman, Chevron Corporation; Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, United Kingdom, and more will join the Reimagining Global Energy Session at the 2025 World Economy Summit. This session will examine how global energy frameworks can adapt to the diverse needs of nations — from infrastructure to economic dependence — and explore what an equitable energy transition looks like, especially for developing economies.

April 23, 2025 | Washington, DC | Learn More

Tim Cawley is the CEO of New York power company Consolidated Edison.

BP faces shareholder anger

BP’s revamped energy strategy — including a row-back of renewables investment targets — faces scrutiny from frustrated shareholders today. The oil and gas major has said it will dispose of, or scale back, non-core divisions, reportedly including its wholly owned solar developer Lightsource as well as its lubricants business. Yet investors are frustrated on multiple fronts. The activist investor Elliott Management wants the company to more aggressively cut back on bets outside of its oil and gas businesses, while Legal & General has said it will vote against the reelection of the firm’s chair over the erosion of BP’s climate-focused investments. Through it all, oil prices in the $65 a barrel range will make it difficult for the company to curb its debts. BP is “in a particularly precarious position,” a Morningstar analyst told Bloomberg.

US battery growth

Two US battery manufacturers announced plans to ramp up domestic production. We wrote on Tuesday that American battery makers could be beneficiaries of President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging trade war, and as if on cue, Lyten and Sila said they were taking steps forward in domestic manufacturing. The former said in a release that it had begun producing the US’ first “battery grade lithium-metal foil” and had used entirely domestically sourced alloys and metals. And Sila separately announced it had begun commissioning at a forthcoming manufacturing plant in Washington state to build huge numbers of its Titan Silicon batteries.

US green firms pivot to Trump talk

Clean energy companies in the US are shifting their messaging to argue that continued federal support is consistent with President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. Meanwhile, many have paring back references to climate change, a Semafor analysis of quarterly earnings call transcripts over the last four years found.

Out of eight companies reviewed — a combination of energy providers, owners of electricity generation assets, and technology manufacturers — use of the terms “emissions” and “climate” and/or “environment” fell from a cumulative high of 45 across the companies’ earning calls in early 2020 to just three by the beginning of this year. By contrast, the terms “energy security,” “energy independence,” and “energy dominance” grew in use, from just two in early 2020 to 12 by the beginning of this year.

Dominion Energy, an energy supplier that currently owns or contracts more than 2,500 megawatts of renewable projects, made the clearest pivot, discussing emissions-related targets in all but one of its earnings calls until the first quarter of 2023. The company has mentioned emissions just once since then, during its Q4 2023 call, when the words “climate” and/or “environment” (in the context of the environmental benefits associated with clean energy) were also used for the last time over the period analyzed.

How sand is hitting Europe’s solar sector

Europe’s solar energy will be curbed in the coming days by a plume of dust from the Sahara Desert, likely boosting electricity prices. Forecasts suggest that Germany’s solar output will be reduced by 11 gigawatts, nearly a third of its total and enough to power nearly 10 million homes. Renewable energy’s intermittent output is a problem, because a lack of utility-scale batteries means electricity cannot easily be stored: When the sun shines and/or wind blows, power is cheap, and prices can even turn negative if there is more than the grid can handle. But when there is a shortage and there is insufficient power from sources such as geothermal or nuclear, grids must switch to more expensive fossil fuels.

New Energy

• Coal-reliant Vietnam plans to invest $136.3 billion by 2030 — equivalent to more than a quarter of its GDP last year — to ramp up installed power capacity, with a focus on renewables and nuclear.

• The US halted a $5 billion offshore wind project being developed by Norway’s Equinor off the coast of New York City.

Fossil Fuels

• French company TotalEnergies has avoided its rivals’ U-turns on renewables by investing oil and gas profits into greener products.

Politics & Policy

• A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must release billions of dollars in funding for paused climate and infrastructure-related projects.
• Administration officials proposed narrowing the definition of “harm” in the half-century-old Endangered Species Act, part of efforts to eliminate regulations that slow the issuance of oil and gas drilling permits.

EVs

• Global EV sales rose 29% year-on-year in March, helped by growth in China and Europe as uncertainties about US tariffs weighed on North American sales.

Food & Agriculture

• Brazilian-headquartered multinational meat company JBS will likely break its promises on Amazon deforestation, cattle ranchers told The Guardian.

Trump officials are optimistic about avoiding another deadline extension for TikTok’s Beijing-based owners to divest, even as the shape of a plan remains out of sight, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott and Morgan Chalfant reported.

“The ball is in China’s court,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt read from a new Trump statement Tuesday. “China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them.” But tariffs have thrown a wrench into negotiations, and the legality of further delays to a Congressionally-imposed ban remains unclear.