Author: omc_admin

Thinking Machines Lab, the much-talked-about, secretive AI startup founded earlier this year by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, has been shelling out top dollar for technical talent ahead of launching any products.TML is paying two members of its technical staff $450,000 in salary, while another is getting $500,000, according to hiring data obtained by Business Insider. A fourth staffer, listed as a “co-founder/machine learning specialist,” receives $450,000 per year.The data comes from federal filings that companies are required to make when they hire a non-US resident on an H-1B visa, which allows them to hire 85,000 specialized workers…

Senate Republicans stunned clean energy developers early Monday by inserting sweeping revisions to President Donald Trump’s $1.2-trillion “One Big, Beautiful Bill” just ahead of floor debate. The last-minute amendments slash wind and solar tax incentives, introduce excise taxes on imported Chinese energy components, and move eligibility criteria from start-date to in-service date, upending financing models across the renewable sector.At stake is nearly $360 billion in clean energy tax credits passed under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Under the Senate version of the bill, production tax credits for wind and solar will now expire by December 31, 2027, five years earlier than…

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The head of the European Central Bank said inflation has become more unpredictable due to shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and that policymakers need to take the possibility of such extreme scenarios into account and communicate them to the public as well. “The world ahead is more uncertain, and that uncertainty is likely to make inflation more volatile,” ECB President Christine Lagarde said Monday in a speech opening the central bank’s annual conference in Sintra, Portugal. “It’s pretty basic but that’s the reality.”One reason, she said, was that increasingly regular…

Oslo-based power and heat provider Hafslund Celsio announced today a new carbon removal offtake agreement with Microsoft, with the tech giant purchasing more than 1 million tons of carbon credits over ten years, to be generated by a new carbon capture project at Norway’s largest waste-to-energy plant. Hafslund Celsio operates the Klemetsrud waste-to-energy facility in Oslo which incinerates around 350,000 metric tons of sorted residual waste each year, with excess energy used to produce electricity and heat. The process results in both biogenic CO2 emissions from burning organic material like spoiled paper and cardboard, as well as fossil CO2 emissions…

U.S. gas prices have dropped to their lowest Independence Day level in four years, with the national average now at $3.14 per gallon, according to GasBuddy. The dip is driven by a retreat in Middle East tensions and consistent supply from both U.S. shale producers and OPEC+ exporters.Brent crude futures have fallen steadily over the past two weeks, dropping from over $75 per barrel to just under $68 as of Monday. The de-escalation between Israel and Iran has eased fears of shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of global oil trade flows. Risk premiums in…

CANNES — Fifteen years after flipping burgers at a McDonald’s and teaching himself to code at night in a cramped apartment near the French Riviera, Robinhood crypto chief Johann Kerbrat is back.The last time he lived around Cannes, he was 21 — with no connections, no funding, and no formal business training. But he had a knack for programming and a drive to solve real-world problems.Kerbrat, who is now senior vice president and crypto GM at Robinhood, quit his job just before starting university in nearby Nice, and soon after launched his first fintech startup: a no-code payments company built…

New Delhi: The price of natural gas used for producing CNG for vehicles and cooking gas was raised 5 per cent for July, following a surge in oil prices triggered by Israel’s military strike on Iran.As part of the monthly revision, the price of natural gas from legacy fields operated by state-owned companies was increased to $6.75 per million British thermal units, up from $6.41, according to a notification from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the Oil Ministry. $6.75 per mmBtu is the ceiling price for gas from legacy fields, known as APM gas, which accounts for…

The government of Norway announced a new climate target, aiming to reduce absolute economy-wide emissions by at least 70% to 75%, on a 2019 basis, by 2035. The new decarbonization goal will form Norway’s new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. NDCs are national climate action plans presented by each country under the agreement, and are required to be updated every five years with increasingly higher ambition. Norway’s current NDC is to achieve a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030. Under Norway’s new NDC submission, the government specifies that the target can be supported by Internationally Transferred Mitigation…

Intensity Infrastructure Partners LLC has partnered with power producer Rainbow Energy Center LLC to construct a new pipeline to bring Bakken gas to eastern North Dakota. “The pipeline will provide expanded takeaway capacity for associated natural gas produced in the Williston Basin”, a joint statement said. “By enabling in-state processing and transportation of natural gas, the project will help reduce flaring, unlock new oil production, and generate increased tax revenues for the state of North Dakota”. The project is planned with two phases. Phase 1 would build a 136-mile, 36-inch pipeline with a capacity of about 1.1 million dekatherms a…

Spain’s national grid operator Redeia will plan for a record-high investments in its next strategic plan, chair Beatriz Corredor said on Monday as the blame game over who is responsible for the massive blackout in April continues. “The company’s next strategic plan will involve the execution of an unprecedented volume of investments,” Reuters quoted Corredor as saying on Monday.  Redeia and its unit Red Electrica (REE) have been blamed for the power outage on April 28, when a blackout hit the electricity transmission systems of Spain and Portugal, and briefly parts of France, in a very rare blackout in Europe. The blackout,…