Author: omc_admin

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced close to $1 billion in funding opportunities for stimulating domestic mining, processing, and manufacturing ventures involving critical minerals in a bid to reduce the country’s dependence on imports.About half of the total will be spent on battery manufacturing and recycling, despite the Trump administration’s negative attitude to electric vehicles, which drove battery tech growth during the Biden administration.The money will be granted to projects focusing on battery metal mining, including, besides lithium, also nickel, copper, aluminum, and graphite, as well as rare earth elements used in batteries. The Department of Energy requires a…

Voltify plans to build a series of energy microgrids to power its locomotive batteries, as shown in this computer-generated image.VoltifyDaphna Langer has a bold ambition: To decarbonize the rail industry in less than a decade.How? By convincing U.S. freight railroad companies to switch from diesel power to rechargeable batteries — part of a business model Langer estimates could make her company, Voltify, as much as $10 billion a year.The rail industry needs to reduce its emissions by 5% a year by 2030 to reach net-zero goals, according to a 2023 report by the International Energy Agency. In addition, switching to…

The prolonged Nordic heatwave in July was supercharged by the climate crisis and shows “no country is safe from climate change”, scientists say.Norway, Sweden and Finland have historically cool climates but were hit by soaring temperatures, including a record run of 22 days above 30C (86C) in Finland. Sweden endured 10 straight days of “tropical nights”, when temperatures did not fall below 20C (68F).Global heating, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, made the heatwave at least 10 times more likely and 2C hotter, the scientists said. Some of the weather data and climate models used in their analysis indicated…

xAI is losing one of its cofounders.Igor Babuschkin, who founded xAI alongside Elon Musk in 2023, said he’s leaving the artificial intelligence startup.In a farewell post on X on Wednesday, Babuschkin wrote that he’s leaving xAI to start Babuschkin Ventures. It will focus on AI safety research and startups developing AI and agentic systems that can “advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of our universe.”In his post, Babuschkin recounted his journey from a CERN particle physics Ph.D. student to helping Musk build xAI from scratch.Babuschkin said he learned two major lessons from Musk.”I learned 2 priceless lessons from Elon: #1…

xAI CEO Elon Musk paid a rare compliment to his rival Google on Wednesday.”Outside of real-world AI, Google has the biggest compute (and data) advantage for now, so currently has the highest probability of being the leader,” Musk wrote in an X post.But that “may change in a few years,” he added.”For the foreseeable future, the major AI companies will continue to prosper, as will xAI. There is just so much to do!” Musk wrote.Musk and Google did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.Google has long been a mainstay in AI.In 2017, Google Research released a paper…

Financial markets are betting almost unanimously that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its September 16–17 policy meeting — but divisions within the central bank and warnings from some policymakers are tempering the growing optimism.Traders in futures linked to the federal funds rate now see a 99.9% probability of a quarter-point cut in September, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, after fresh U.S. inflation data and continued pressure from the Trump administration for more aggressive action. July’s Consumer Price Index showed a moderate rise, while revised labor market figures revealed much weaker job growth in May, June, and…

(Oil & Gas 360) – Don’t Miss The Energy Transition and Emerging Technology Session at EnerCom Denver – The Energy Investment Conference, celebrating its 30th anniversary this August! Registration is still available for EnerCom Denver – The Energy Investment Conference. The full schedule for the conference can be found at  www.enercomdenver.com. In recent years, the Energy Transition and Emerging Technology session at EnerCom Denver has highlighted early-stage innovators and entrepreneurs working to reshape the global energy industry, tackling complex challenges, advancing technologies, and exploring new sources of energy.   EnerCom’s Energy Transition and Emerging Technology Session will feature: Teren As…

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — World shares were mixed Thursday ahead of a key meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the week’s end. Bitcoin briefly rose more than 3% to a new record of over $123,000, according to CoinDesk. It later fell back below $122,000. The future for the S&P 500 was unchanged, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% higher. Later Thursday, a report will show how bad U.S. inflation was at the wholesale level across the United States. Economists expect it to show inflation ticked up to 2.4% in July…

During earnings season for the first quarter of the year, the message of the U.S. energy industry to the world was “Peak shale is here.” Now, three months later, the message has changed. Now, shale drillers are signaling there is still space to grow, so those expecting a decline after the peak will have to wait a bit longer.“We believe we are at a tipping point for U.S. oil production at current commodity prices,” said Travis Stice, chief executive of Diamondback Energy back in May in a letter to shareholders. “The amount of capital required to get back to 13…

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China braced Thursday for heavy rains as Tropical Storm Podul made landfall in several southern provinces and thousands of people were evacuated.Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces were the focus of the preparation efforts, but alarms were at a relatively low level given the storm’s loss of strength as it passed over Taiwan on Wednesday. About 15,000 people had been evacuated from seaside areas in southern China as of Wednesday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Podul made landfall shortly after midnight on Thursday in Fujian classified as a tropical storm — downgraded from a typhoon…