Supertanker fares shoot up as war threatens Strait of Hormuz nadel eye
“Military action in the Middle East will likely take VLCC rates to levels not seen since 2019.” – Anoop Singh, Oil Brokerage Ltd. analyst
Brent crude futures rose to the highest level in six months by the end of the week, with prices above $71 a barrel (charts here). President Trump said Tehran has 10 to 15 days to strike a deal with Washington on its nuclear program while the U.S. assembles forces across the Middle East. As the risk of war increases, the cost of chartering a supertanker is skyrocketing.
Bloomberg cites VLCC revenue data from the Baltic Exchange showing that fares on the Middle East-to-China route tripled this year to about $151,208 per day, the highest level since 2020.
Traders are hyper-focused on the potential disruption of the crucial maritime bottleneck the Strait of Hormuz, which may further drive up risk premiums for charters. Scarcity is also exacerbated by ownership concentration.
“Military action in the Middle East will likely take VLCC rates to levels not seen since 2019,” said Oil Brokerage Ltd. analyst Anoop Singh.
Tension in the oil market is mounting, especially toward the weekend, after President Trump said Tehran has about 10 to 15 days to make a deal on its nuclear program.10 to 15 days to make a deal
“We’re either going to get a deal, or it’s going to be unfortunate for them,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday.
About the deadline, Trump said he thought 10 to 15 days was “pretty much” the “maximum” he would allow for the negotiation period. “I would think that would be enough time,” he said.
Bloomberg noted that the military power the U.S. is building in the region is the largest since 2003, adding, “It dwarfs the military buildup that Trump ordered off the coast of Venezuela in the weeks before he ousted President Nicolas Maduro.”
Bryan Clark, defense analyst at the Hudson Institute and former Navy strategy officer, told the Medium, “With Iran’s air defenses largely neutralized by previous US and Israeli strikes, the US strike fighters would operate largely with impunity over Iranian airspace.”
“There is always the risk of downed pilots, but I think the bigger risk is to ships. The same cruise and ballistic missiles the Iranians gave to the Houthis could be turned against US ships in the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Red Sea,” Clark said.
Kenneth Hvid, CEO of Teekay Tankers, recently told investors that the combination of consolidation in the VLCC segment and possible war risks in the Middle East means the movement in tanker rates is “more in anticipation of something happening,” adding, “It’s just a situation we need to watch.”
Crude oil
India may soon replace Russian oil with Venezuelan on a large scale
“Our companies are being openly forced out of Venezuela” – Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister
A new U.S. license is being interpreted as prohibiting Venezuelan energy companies from entering into transactions with China, among others. If correct, India could take over the 642,000 barrels of oil per day that China imported on average last year, halving its imports of Russian oil.
RT drew attention on social media to the Department of the Treasury’s newly issued“Venezuela General License 48,” which allows American companies to “provide goods, technology, software or services for the exploration, development or production of oil or gas in Venezuela” with two conditions.
The first is that every contract their partners enter into is subject to U.S. law, which turns into the second contract prohibiting any transaction with Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China.
For this reason, RT interpreted the aforementioned license in their tweet as the “Prohibition of Venezuelan oil producers from doing business with Russia and China.”
That is reasonable, as it was explained here that the Trump doctrine is shaped by Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy of Denial,” which in its simplest form is intended to deny strategic resources to U.S. rivals such as those described earlier.
This is especially true for China, the systemic rival of the US, but Trump gave mixed signals earlier.
Recently, he welcomed Chinese investment in the Venezuelan energy industry, but in retrospect, that may have been only to manage the Sino-American rivalry amid their ongoing trade negotiations.
Trump wants a deal with Xi, which may become much more difficult for his counterpart if he openly declares that the US will deny China continued access to Venezuela’s strategic resources. It therefore makes sense for the U.S. to quietly introduce this policy through its new license.
Even before the announcement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovcomplained that “our companies are being openly forced out of Venezuela,” so this policy was already informally implemented by Delcy Rodriguez’s government under U.S. pressure. Except for Cuba, none of the countries with which the new U.S. license bans transactions depend on Venezuelan energy, but removing them from this industry serves another purpose that may be even more strategic than denying them resources.
Trump boasted earlier this month that India agreed to stop buying Russian oil as part of the terms of its trade agreement with the U.S. and replace its imports with American and possibly Venezuelan oil. So far, before the new U.S. authorization, it was assessed that “India Is Expected To Only Slowly Reduce Its Import Of Russian Oil,” thanks in part to confirmation from the Venezuelan ambassador to China that his country is interested in continuing exports to the country, and Trump welcomes Chinese investment in the sector.
If RT’s interpretation of the license is correct, and Lavrov believes that after complaining about the new U.S. ban on Venezuelan energy transactions with Russia during his last appearance in the State Duma, then India would be able to get the 642,000 barrels of oil (bpd) per day that China imported on average last year.
That is more than half of the 1 million barrels a day India imported from Russia last month, which could lead to a sharp drop in the budget revenue Russia expected to receive from such sales.
The U.S. is actively monitoring India’s direct and indirect imports of Russian oil, under the condition under which they recently lifted last summer’s 25% punitive tax imposed because of these transactions.
By shutting China out of the Venezuelan energy industry and thereby enabling India to replace its imports of oil from that country, the U.S. is facilitating India’s rapid reduction of Russian oil imports and could even set it back if this policy is quickly repeated with regard to Iran’s oil exports to China.
“Renewables, nuclear, and natural gas are the big winners of the electricity demand boom, but the rise in all these power-generating sources would not mean anything if they struggle to connect to the grid.” – Tsvetana Paraskova, OilPrice.com
The International Energy Agency says global electricity demand is growing at its fastest pace in 15 years and is expected to increase more than 3.5% annually through 2030.
Although renewables, nuclear and natural gas are expanding rapidly, grid infrastructure is becoming the main bottleneck, with more than 2,500 GW of energy and load projects stuck in connection queues worldwide.
Investment in the power grid needs to rise about 50% above current levels to keep pace, with BloombergNEF and Goldman Sachs warning that continued grid constraints could cause power shortages and even undermine the U.S. position in the global AI race
Global electricity demand is rising at the fastest pace in 15 years and will continue to do so until at least the end of the decade, as AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and electrification have ushered in the age of electricity, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Global power demand is expected to grow at an average rate of more than 3.5% per year through the end of the decade, the agency said in its new Electricity 2026 report.
Renewable energy, nuclear power and natural gas are the big winners in the electricity demand boom, but the increase in all these power generation sources would mean nothing if they were struggling to connect to the grid.
Explosion in power demand
Global electricity demand rose 3% per year in 2025, following 4.4% growth in 2024, the IEA said in the report.
Between 2026 and 2030, the annual average growth rate will be 3.6%, driven by higher consumption from industry, electric vehicles (EVs), air conditioning and data centers, the agency said.
Although emerging economies, including China, India and the Southeast Asia region, will drive 80% of additional power demand by 2030, developed economies are seeing growth in electricity demand after 15 years of stagnation, the IEA said. Artificial intelligence, data centers and advanced manufacturing support the return to energy demand growth in advanced economies.
US electricity demand rose 2.1% in 2025 and is expected to grow nearly 2% annually through 2030. Rapid expansion of data centers will account for half of the increase, the agency noted.
Demand in the EU is expected to grow by about 2% per year through 2030, and many other developed economies – such as Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea – are expected to grow electricity demand faster through 2030.
Grid investment lags power generation boom
As demand grows, developers of new capacity, especially renewables and natural gas, face constraints in connecting to the grid. Regional and country-specific trends are not the same, but the need for rapid and efficient grid expansion is an urgent global issue. Without more system flexibility and rapid grid expansion, the Era of Electricity could be slower to roll out than expected.
Today, global investment in electricity grids is about $400 billion a year. If the world is to meet the projected growth in power demand through 2030, it would need to increase annual grid investment by about 50% from $400 billion, the IEA said.
The Age of Electricity will also require “significant scaling up of grid-related supply chains,” the IEA said.
Currently, more than 2,500 gigawatts (GW) of projects – renewable energy, storage and large-load projects such as data centers – are stuck in connection queues worldwide.
A total of 1,600 GW of parked projects could be integrated in the near term through grid-enhancing technologies and regulatory reforms that allow for more flexible connections and use, the agency believes.
But more flexibility and expansion of the power grid require more investment than current spending.
Last year, investment in the power grid appeared to exceed $470 billion for the first time, up 16% from 2024, a BloombergNEF analysis showed in December.
The US accounted for a quarter of global grid spending with the highest level of investment in 2025 at $115 billion. China and the EU/UK followed as other major contributors, each with about 20% of the global amount, according to the report.
However, rising equipment costs, exacerbated by high inflation, are beginning to affect overall spending figures, BNEF said, adding that increased spending “will not completely eliminate ongoing bottlenecks in grid infrastructure, meaning delays in new generation and demand connections are likely to persist in the coming years.”
“We’ve seen that even with increased investment, there are significant barriers to meeting the needs of new generation and power demand on time,” said Peter Wall, head of Grids Research at BloombergNEF.
“With data centers and industrial electrification increasing power demand dramatically, investors need to take into account how essential timely grid expansion is, not only to connect new demand, but also to connect all the generation we need to ensure a safe and reliable supply to this demand after more than a decade of stagnation.”
Additional investment in the power grid is hampered by supply chain and labor constraints, notes BloombergNEF.
In the U.S., aging grid infrastructure in key regional markets cannot meet all requests, with grid investment lagging behind sharply rising power demand.
At the current rate of interconnection requests and grid capacity, the US could face a power shortage by 2030, said Samantha Dart, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, at a conference last month.
“We’re not adding enough capacity,” Dart said in January at the Goldman Sachs Energy, CleanTech and Utilities Conference in Miami.
Almost all US power grids may not have critical reserve capacity by the end of the decade. If the problem with grid constraints is not solved, China could overtake the US in the AI race, Dart noted.
Germany faces gas shortage crisis: industry demands strategic reserve
“It is remarkable that Germany has largely ignored fundamental questions of energy market design and the security of grids with baseload energy for years.” – Thomas Kolbe
After the Federal Network Agency, the energy industry umbrella organization is now calling for the creation of a national strategic natural gas reserve. The coordinated industry effort makes clear that the decline in gas storage levels is far more serious than politicians have so far admitted.
Kerstin Andreae, president of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), did Monday in an interview with the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland called for the creation of a national strategic gas reserve.
Andreae stressed the need for a robust buffer to absorb external shocks in Germany’s energy supply. With this demand, the BDEW explicitly backed the position of the Federal Network Agency, whose President Klaus Müller had already called for such a strategic reserve in an interview with the DPA last week.
Similar signals are now coming from the business world. Oldenburg-based energy supplier EWE also believes it is time to discuss additional crisis instruments and follow the example of other European countries. Austria, France, and Poland already have strategic gas reserves to protect against supply crises.
Reality ignored
It is noteworthy that for years Germany has largely ignored fundamental questions about the design of the energy market and the security of base load energy networks-a consequence of ideologically driven decisions, for which the then Federal Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck also bears political responsibility.
Current figures underscore the urgency of the situation. Gas storage levels in Germany are currently falling by about one percent per day due to the cold weather, with total fill levels at about 30 percent.
In extreme cases, such as conditions similar to the winter of 2010, a gas shortage is quite conceivable. In such a scenario, daily consumption could no longer be covered by additional LNG imports and remaining gas supplies. The result would be planned shutdowns, initially in energy-intensive industries, with chain reactions and dramatic economic effects over large parts of the economy.
Germany stands in 2026 amid the ruins of its irrational energy policy. It reads like a bad joke that the country that dismantled its nuclear power, removed cheap Russian gas at the request of Brussels, and now plans to move out of coal-fired power is now talking about national gas reserves – all in the name of a political and media-enforced climate hysteria.
Insurance and stubbornness
Publicly, politicians and the Federal Network Agency are working to downplay the problem of falling gas storage levels. Shortly before his dpa interview, Federal Network Agency President Klaus Müller told the Rheinische Post that the risk of supply problems was generally low. Germany had created more flexibility through multiple import channels-both pipelines and newly built LNG terminals. Moreover, wholesale market prices showed no signs of scarcity, even if they had risen recently, Müller said.
It is a rare skill to contradict yourself several times in just a few sentences, as Müller managed to do in this interview.
In contrast, the lobby group INES spoke of historically low levels of German gas storage. At this time last year, the fill level was around 58 percent, and as high as 76 percent the year before. The difference is not marginal, but structural and highlights the growing vulnerability of the country’s energy security.
The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs struck a similar tone. In January it referred to the new import flexibility and recently saw no need for state intervention in the market-however one can hardly call the German energy grid a “market” anymore, a fact that may have gone unnoticed in the ministry.
Energy economist Claudia Kemfert of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) also said in January that there was no supply crisis and imports remained stable. That bad weather and cold spells in North America are now threatening LNG supplies from the main supplier, the U.S.-which accounts for more than 90 percent of Germany’s LNG supply-may be the irony of the weather gods. But it does not change the fact that German energy policy is caught between ideological blindness, general negligence and an intellectual simplification of the core problem.
Germany now offers a textbook example of the consequences of centrally planned interventionist policies. Once initiated, any further assessment of the increasingly distorted market design forces additional interventions and regulatory measures. The system is gradually transforming into a command economy. It is a downward supply spiral that can only be broken if long-term measures enable the German energy sector to produce baseload-capable energy again.
This would include returning to Russian gas supplies, reversing decisions about phasing out coal and introducing modern small modular nuclear reactors. These, by the way, produce no traditional nuclear waste-an argument that immediately dismisses reflexive objections from anti-nuclear opponents.
Worldwide, nuclear energy is experiencing an impressive revival, especially in the U.S., China and Russia. Only in Germany does ideological stubbornness prevent the recognition of this reality.
Pressure must be exerted on European policy to exploit significant gas reserves, gain geostrategic breathing space and at least partially free itself from its self-imposed stranglehold.
Irony of history
The emerging need for a national gas reserve brings with it two ironies. First, it is a belated recognition of the complete failure of the energy transition. Renewable energies, because of their volatility and to ensure grid stability and security of supply, require storage and reserve capacities that cannot be economically provided without imposing enormous burdens on the economy or causing partial collapse.
Second, it is precisely the declared archenemy of German policy, U.S. President Donald Trump, who is today calling not only for an existing strategic oil reserve, but also for the creation of further national reserves. Washington plans to invest about $12 billion in storing metals such as lithium, rare earths, nickel and cobalt, strategically reducing dependence on China and other raw material suppliers.
The terms “national” and “reserve” in the context of energy policy are particularly offensive to the green-left. There, people are not used to submitting to reality and recognizing that conservative thinking in terms of supply security, preparedness and societal resilience is superior in every way-even as a socio-political concept.
In the US, security of supply and strategic resilience feature prominently on the political agenda, alongside energy market deregulation. In Germany, however, remarkable consistency is applied to stabilizing a green crony economy, whose economic viability continues to decline.
German households will experience the consequences of this fatal mistake very concretely in their bills in the coming weeks and months.
About the Author: Thomas Kolbe, an economics graduate from Germany, has worked for more than 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various sectors and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and his right to self-determination.
Price TTF gas supply year 2027 (eur/MWh) – day cloud candle, log scale
Coal
Winter Storm Fern proved that coal is still the reliable backbone of the power grid
“Coal plants responded exactly as they are designed to do: steadily, predictably, and at scale.” – Emily Arthun, RealClearEnergy
When Winter Storm Fern swept across much of the United States in mid-January 2026—bringing snow, ice, and sustained sub-zero temperatures from Texas to New England—millions of Americans braced for power outages. In some areas, those fears were realized. Tennessee alone reported more than 245,000 customer outages at peak conditions. At the same time, natural gas prices spiked dramatically, exceeding $30 per MMBtu at certain constrained delivery points within the PJM Interconnection.
Still, despite the ferocity and duration of the storm, the national power grid largely held up. Hospitals remained open. Emergency services remained online. Most homes stayed warm. That result was not accidental. It was the result of reliable, controllable generation, with coal being the most important.
During the coldest days of the storm, coal-fired generation increased in the Lower 48, from about 70 gigawatt-hours per day to about 130. That additional generation represented a huge increase in available power just at the time when demand for electric heating was soaring and system margins were narrowing. In practical terms, coal generation helped preserve power to tens of millions of households across the country, preserving heat and essential services during the most extreme winter storm conditions.
Coal-fired power plants responded exactly as designed: steadily, predictably and on a large scale. In the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region, coal provided up to 40 percent of electricity during peak hours. In PJM, coal accounted for about a quarter of total generation. These were not marginal contributions-they were fundamental to grid stability.
The contrast with weather-dependent resources was unmistakable. Wind production declined as turbines froze or were curtailed for safety. Solar power dropped sharply as panels were covered by snow and daylight hours were shortened. Hydropower faced limitations due to frozen waterways and restricted inflows. Each of these sources plays a role in the broader energy mix, but Winter Storm Fern highlighted their limitations during prolonged, widespread cold.
The advantage of coal in these moments is simple: fuel on site. They stored coal plants against supply chain disruptions exactly when other fuels faced constraints. This is not a theoretical advantage. It is a practical one that has been repeatedly demonstrated during extreme weather conditions.
That lesson probably sounds familiar. After winter storm Uri in 2021, coal was often blamed for grid failures. Subsequent analyses showed that the most significant disruptions came from large-scale freezes in natural gas systems, not from coal plant performance. In subsequent years, coal facilities invested in winter resiliency, fuel access and operational readiness. During Winter Storm Fern, those preparations paid off.
Federal policymakers recognized this reality in real time. The U.S. Department of Energy issued emergency orders under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, allowing certain coal units to temporarily operate at higher power levels to maintain grid stability. Similar measures in 2025 prevented the premature phasing out of coal plants in Colorado, Indiana, Washington, and Michigan, which preserved more than 17 gigawatts of firm coal capacity that would otherwise be shut down on short notice.
These decisions were not ideological in nature. They were driven by reliability.
Warnings from grid authorities emphasize this point. The Department of Energy and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation have both warned that continued phasing out of coal, without equivalent replacement with solid, deployable resources, increases the risk of power outages, especially during extreme winter conditions. At the same time, electricity demand is rising rapidly due to data centers, electrification, and industrial growth. The margin for error is shrinking.
Coal is not static. Modern coal plants operate with advanced emissions controls, improved efficiency, and increasingly sophisticated monitoring. Mining practices have evolve,d and research into carbon management and advanced coal technologies continues. Coal also remains essential for steel production and other industrial purposes, making domestic production economically and strategically important.
Affordability is just as important as reliability. Regions that have prematurely deferred coal have often experienced higher electricity prices and greater exposure to fuel volatility. Coal’s stable fuel costs and on-site supplies provide a degree of price certainty that consumers increasingly lack, especially during weather emergencies, when energy costs hit household budgets the hardest.
Winter Storm Fern conveyed a clear message. When the grid was under maximum load, coal did not just contribute-it carried a significant portion of the load. A resilient energy strategy does not eliminate reliable sources until reliable replacements are ready. It builds a diversified generation portfolio that includes coal, natural gas, nuclear and emerging technologies, each fulfilling the role it does best.
America’s energy future depends first on reliability. During one of the toughest winter tests in recent years, coal proved again that it remains an essential component to keep the lights on – and the heating running.
Emily Arthun is currently CEO of the American Coal Council and brings more than 20 years of experience in the coal and hard rock mining sectors. Prior to her position at ACC, she worked at the Women’s Mining Coalition, where she supported advocacy for domestic mining. Her industry experience includes Stillwater Mining Company and Cloud Peak Energy. She serves on the boards of the Washington Coal Club and the Women’s Mining Coalition.
Europe’s chemical sector ‘will disappear’ under weight of EU Green Deal, CEOs sound alarm
“In just a few years, nearly 10 percent of production capacity on the Old Continent has disappeared.” – Remix News
The visible decline in production in the European chemical sector may soon have much more serious consequences. The production capacity is disappearing, and further consequences will be alarming, warn leaders of the largest companies in a sector that has recently experienced a period of prosperity.
They are calling for swift and sweeping changes in EU law, Polish Business Insider writes.
In just a few years, nearly 10 percent of manufacturing capacity on the Old Continent has disappeared. Industry representatives warn that cheaper products from Asia and the Middle East Center are taking their place, while European companies are suffocating under the weight of energy prices, CO2 costs and a tangle of regulations. This is the view of both state-owned (Azoty), private (Qemetica) and foreign companies operating in Poland (BASF).
The chemical sector accounts for about 7 percent of total EU industry and generates more than 1 million direct jobs, with 3 to 5 times as many indirect jobs, mainly in small and medium-sized enterprises. Meanwhile, according to Katarzyna Byczkowska, CEO of BASF Polska, about 9 percent of chemical production capacity in Europe has been liquidated in the past three years, and in 2023-2024 the European chemical industry alone will shrink by 14 percent. During the same period, chemical production in countries such as China, Russia and the United States grew.
“In Europe, we are playing a different game from the rest of the world, but on the same playing field. We are starting to lose,” warned Kamil Majczak, CEO of Qemetika (formerly Ciech), during a debate organized by Siemens with other chemical industry representatives. In his view, Europe still believes it can impose its rules on others, while China, the U.S. and India see the world as a field to expand their sphere of influence and take over markets.
“We can’t expect developing countries to suddenly make everything green, three times more expensive, because we think it’s the right thing to do,” he adds.
Majczak emphasizes that the effects of rising costs are already tangible. More and more factories are closing in Europe, and some companies have survived the past two or three years by leveraging previous profits. “This buffer is running out, and once a factory closes, it won’t reopen. People will leave, production capacity will disappear, and it will not return after a year or two,” warns Qemetica’s CEO.
In the case of fertilizers, the price of gasoline is 75-80 percent of the product’s production cost. Europe has been an importer for many years and is now forced to use much more expensive sources than before. This poses a significant challenge to fertilizer companies such as Azoty.
This is especially a problem for the chemical sector, since it is such an energy-intensive industry, said Paweł Bielski, vice president of Grupa Azoty.
“At certain points, gas in the U.S. was 4-6 times cheaper than in Europe,” recalls Katarzyna Byczkowska, CEO of BASF Poland. The differences in energy costs are directly visible in the profit and loss accounts of European and American plants, admits Kamil Majczak, CEO of Qemetica, which compares the results of plants in Europe and the US. CO2 emissions charges must also be added to the total, which Majczak says is practically nonexistent outside Europe, with the exception of a specific system in California.
Industry representatives stress that they are not questioning the direction of decarbonization, but the pace, scale and structure of regulation in a situation where Europe is already starting from a worse position because it is more expensive in terms of energy.
Katarzyna Byczkowska highlights two levels of regulatory costs.
First, there are direct costs resulting from regulatory compliance, as in the case of the EU’s CLP regulation. The change in font on chemical labels reportedly cost its company more than €300 million, before some provisions were repealed after a year of intense negotiations.
Second, there is the increasing structural burden due to the sheer number and volatility of regulations, which creates chaos, reduces predictability and takes resources away from research and development.
“In Europe, we already spend twice as much on regulatory compliance as on research and development,” notes the head of BASF Poland. Across the continent, this translates into an 8 percent drop in R&D spending, while in China and the U.S. spending is increasing year on year.
PaweÅ‚ Bielski, vice president of Grupa Azoty, points out that the EU climate package and subsequent parts of Fit for 55 were developed under completely different circumstances than the current sector. “The Green Deal was adopted when no one took into account the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, or the rapid change in Europe’s energy balance,” he argues. He says the direction of decarbonization remains unchanged even if some rules are formally suspended, but the rules themselves must be improved.
A symbolic example is the ETS system, or emissions trading. Free emission allowances shrink every year, and as Byczkowska explains, in a time of crisis, companies cannot “add” an extra billion euros a year to purchase certificates and new investments are blocked. “We need someone to stop tightening their grip on us even more,” she says.
The clash between European climate ambitions and the realities of global competition is sharpest in the face of Asian production. “We used to be an exporter, now we’re an importer, and that fundamentally disrupts the balance,” says Majczak. China has built huge, modern production capacity in recent years to meet its own market, but the slowdown in demand has freed up a significant portion of that capacity for export.
Taking advantage of cheaper energy and less restrictive regulations, Chinese producers aggressively entered the European market, from fertilizers to plastics.
PaweÅ‚ Bielski points out that until recently, Europe had a strong polymer industry, including the production of polyamides for automotive, construction and packaging industries. Today, China’s dominance is overwhelming in many segments – in one of which, as he notes, 67 percent of global production capacity is already in China. He believes a similar trend is visible in fertilizers: huge plants are being built in Russia, the U.S. and Persian Gulf countries, which will not consume all of their production domestically, but will instead send it to Europe, among other countries.
One positive sign is that technological advances are lowering costs. “We’re seeing increased activity from companies investing in solutions that enable faster, cheaper, and safer production,” says Maciej ZieliÅ„ski, CEO of Siemens Polska.
“Connecting generation, storage, and consumption facilities to the electricity grid is facing ever greater challenges.” – Germany’s economy and energy ministry
Germany is proposing that renewable energy developers pay for connection to the grid in new regulations replacing the current first-come, first-served system, Reuters reported Monday, citing a new draft law it has seen.
The current congestion in the grid connection queue and regulations that allow the first applications to be connected are slowing the expansion of renewable energy.
“Connecting generation, storage, and consumption facilities to the electricity grid is facing ever greater challenges,” according to the bill proposed by the German Ministry of Economy and Energy, as submitted by Reuters.
“In particular, the ongoing flood of applications from large-scale battery storage systems is overloading grid operators and blocking other grid connection applicants.,” the proposal states.
In addition to making renewable energy developers pay to connect to the grid, the new regulations would also encourage the construction of wind, solar and battery capacity in areas with easier connections to the grid.
Despite rapidly increasing wind and solar installations in recent years, Germany must accelerate capacity expansion to meet its own renewable energy targets.
Europe’s largest economy has a goal of having 80% of its electricity production from renewable energy by 2030.
In the field of solar energy, Germany is halfway to achieving its solar energy goals for 2030, the German Solar Industry Association (BSW-Solar) said last June.
However, the association warned that the expansion of solar energy has slowed and although Germany is halfway to its solar energy targets, the next step to reach the 2030 targets cannot be taken for granted.
Germany saw the highest number of onshore wind turbines commissioned in eight years in the first half of 2025, but the uptick in installations is still not on track to meet official targets, the German Wind Energy Association (BWE) said in mid-2025.
Despite the increase in wind power installations, Germany still has a gap between the pace of capacity expansion and the legally mandated targets in the Renewable Energy Sources Act, said the so-called EEG, BWE President Bärbel Heidebroek said in July.
Renewable energy now makes up a quarter of U.S. electricity generation
By 2025, the share of renewable energy in U.S. electricity generation will exceed 25 percent prayerfully.
Over the past 20 years, their share has risen continuously from just 8.6 percent in 2007.
Although the Trump administration’s policies on renewable energy and greenhouse gases have not yet shown full effect, experts believe that the sector’s strong growth, as well as efficiency and cost improvements, will ensure that it will continue to expand – albeit more slowly – despite some losses in government funding and the end of emission limits.
In 2022 for the first time in a single year, more electricity generated from renewable sources than from coal.
That year, renewables produced more than 900 terawatt hours of electricity in the country, compared with just over 800 hours coming from coal.
Until 2007, coal accounted for more than 2,000 terawatt-hours of electricity in the U.S., before the figure began to decline as regulations around fossil fuels – limits on carbon intensity and emissions of toxic elements such as mercury – tightened. Electricity generation from natural gas picked up speed as a result, because it produces slightly less CO2. To reach net-zero emissions targets, however, the U.S. would have to continue to develop carbon-neutral electricity sources such as wind and solar, which are steadily rising in the new millennium and are now the second-largest source of electricity in the country.
Here, renewable energy made up only 9 percent in 2023, as energy sources other than electricity – notably petroleum in the form of gasoline – are added to the total.
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