In the US, the Biden administration has announced that it is restoring parts of a law requiring climate impacts to be considered before federal agencies approve highways, pipelines and other major projects, reports the New York Times. The newspaper notes that the “resurrection” of these requirements in the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act followed their removal by former president Donald Trump, who had got rid of them on the basis that they slowed down infrastructure construction. The changes means that not only will federal agencies have to assess the emissions produced by a project over its lifetime, they will have to assess how future climate change will affect the structure once it is complete, the piece continues. The Hill notes that the law requires the government to consider both environmental and community concerns before it approves various types of infrastructure projects. Politico says the change will “allow agencies to expand consideration of environmental justice factors in decision-making – aligning with the stated priorities of the Biden administration”. It adds that a second change to the rules is expected later in the year.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that a trade probe by the US Commerce Department – which could result in tariffs against solar power technology imports from south-east Asian nations – is already placing projects at risk of cancellation. It cites a survey by advocacy group the American Clean Power Association, which finds that “at least 65% of US solar capacity set to come online in 2022 and 2023 – equivalent to 24 gigawatts (GW) – is now at significant risk of cancellation or delay”.

Rolls-Royce has said that it expected the government to approve mini-nuclear reactors in 2024 “amid a scramble to ditch fossil fuels”, the Daily Telegraph reports. The newspaper says that the government asked the UK’s nuclear watchdog to start the approval process last month after the Rolls-Royce secured a £210m grant from ministers to develop the country’s first small nuclear reactor (SMR). Paul Stein, chairman of Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactors, told Reuters that the regulatory process “has been kicked off” and “we are trying to work with the UK government, and others to get going now placing orders, so we can get power on grid by 2029”. The Daily Express notes that the UK government had made a point to make such nuclear reactors “a key feature of the new energy strategy that was unveiled earlier this month”. According to the Guardian, SMRs – based on the reactors used in nuclear submarines – are seen by Rolls-Royce as “a potential earner far beyond any previous business such as jet engines or diesel motors”. A Lex column in the Financial Times also considers SMRs, noting that they have “have much to prove” and that “champions of SMRs such as Rolls-Royce need to demonstrate big savings to counterbalance the diseconomies of scale of the small plants”.

In more nuclear news, the Hill reports that in the US, the Biden administration intends to put $6bn toward saving nuclear power plants from closure, “viewing the power source as another carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels”. Reuters notes that 12 US nuclear reactors have closed since 2013 in the face of competition from renewable power and natural gas plants. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports on the situation in Germany, explaining that political, legal and logistical obstacles are all preventing the nation from restarting its closed nuclear plants to ease the energy crisis. “The government says it will not change its position. It cites technical reasons but the biggest argument could be political, especially for the Greens, who control the economy ministry,” the piece states.

The Guardian reports on a session of the UK’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) select committee, in which energy bosses told MPs that as many as four in 10 people in Britain could fall into fuel poverty when the price cap rises again this autumn. According to the newspaper, chief executives of companies including E.ON UK and ScottishPower called for more government support for vulnerable households facing a “truly horrific” winter. This could include the introduction of a deficit fund or social tariff for vulnerable customers, which would take £1,000 off the bills of the poorest people in the country in October. According to the Times, the committee heard that customer debt could rise by 50% to £2.4bn, with leaders expecting that many would be unable to pay. The Daily Mail also reports on the committee hearing, quoting E.ON chief executive Michael Lewis who also mentioned “removing environmental levies and putting them into general taxation” as something the government could do “right now”, alongside “reducing VAT to zero and extending the warm home discount further”. (Carbon Brief has previously reported the relatively small contribution made to energy bills by environmental levies.) Bloomberg quotes Hayden Wood, the chief executive of Bulb, apologising at the committee hearing for the multibillion-pound cost to taxpayers after the energy supplier collapsed last year. According to the Daily Mirror, chancellor Rishi Sunak is “apparently deciding whether to help struggling households before the price cap rises again later this year”. The Financial Times says that, according to Lewis, Sunak’s interventions so have been “not nearly enough” to mitigate the impact of rising energy costs.

An “exclusive” story in the i newspaper finds that solar panel owners in the UK are refusing to sell power to energy firms which “pay as little as 19 times less than they charge”. Finally, BusinessGreen reports on new analysis by thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) that shows the average UK household may need to pay an additional £125 in annual energy bills by 2035 due to restrictions on the development of new onshore wind farms in England, which have held back one of the cheapest sources of electricity.

The Financial Times states that Europe’s efforts to wean itself off Russian gas should have provided Algeria with an opportunity, amid interest from Italian prime minister Mario Draghi and US secretary of state Antony Blinken in the north African country’s oil-and-gas reserves. However, according to energy experts cited in the piece, Algeria – which is the third-biggest natural gas supplier to Europe with about 8% market share – does not have enough extra gas to make available quickly. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Kurdish prime minister Masrour Barzani has talked with UK prime minister Boris Johnson about his desire to export energy to Europe and reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas. Politico quotes French economic minister Bruno Le Maire who has called on the EU to prioritise a Russian oil embargo rather than a ban on gas, “while acknowledging that not all the bloc’s countries” – which he did not name – were on board with the move. The Daily Telegraph reports that fresh forecasts from the IMF “lay bare the economic blow to be dealt to [Europe] due to its reliance on Russian energy”.

Reuters reports that, in the Balkans, nations are turning to coal as they try to tackle surging energy crisis, despite the impact it could have on their climate commitments. And another Reuters piece states that Kremlin climate envoy Ruslan Edelgeriyev told a conference in Moscow that Russia would “move ahead with its climate agenda even though western companies were leaving the country because of international sanctions over Ukraine”.

German magazine Stern reports that “activists of the climate movement Last Generation symbolically laid a pipeline in front of the federal ministry of economy in Berlin on Tuesday”, with demands to abandon potential gas supplies from Qatar. The outlet continues that “floor panels in front of the entrance were removed to make room for pipes marked “Qatar Stream”. It also quotes a campaign participant: “[If we] stay that way we never go below 1.5C and are heading for climate collapse. And that has to stop. Get out of fossil fuels and into renewables.”

Meanwhile, Handelsblatt carries an interview with Leonhard Birnbaum, the head of E.ON, who continues to speak out against an embargo on Russian gas supplies. He says that this is not only because of the consequences for Germany: “If we believe that we can ensure the German supply without taking care of the other countries together, then the EU will tear apart.” Manager Magazin reports that a new Greenpeace study shows that Germany will pay more for Russian energy suppliers this year, saying that “spending on Russian oil threatens to rise from €11.4bn in the previous year to €14.3bn this year. The import bill for gas could double from €8.8bn last year to €17.6bn due to rising prices”.

Finally, Energie&Management reports that the EU has allocated €20bn for climate neutrality in Germany, adding that “the money will be used primarily for investments in energy efficiency and the reduction of CO2 emissions so that Germany can become climate-neutral by 2045”.

According to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, the growth rate of electricity consumption of five Chinese provinces exceeded 10% in the first quarter of 2022, reports state-run China Energy News. In another 17 provinces, the growth rate surpassed 5% between January and March, the outlet notes, citing the NDRC. The report also says that the nation’s “above-the-scale” industrial companies had generated around 1,990 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in the first quarter, a 3.1% year-on-year increase, according to the NDRC. (“Above-the-scale” enterprises is a set phrase. It refers to those businesses whose annual income through its main business activity amounts to 20m yuan or above, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.) The national total electricity consumption in the first quarter of 2022 increased by 5% year-on-year, the report adds. China Electricity Newspaper also covers the NDRC data. Energy reports that in March, the national power generation was 670TWh, an increase of “only” 0.2% year-on-year, citing data released by the National Energy Administration (NEA) and the China Electricity Council. The outlet says that the “fast growth” of electricity consumption year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021 was mainly attributed to the “significant drop” in domestic electricity consumption in the first quarter of 2020 “due to the impact of the pandemic”.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that China’s domestic output of coal and natural gas is “soaring” after “Beijing pressured state-owned producers to boost activity to ensure energy security”. The outlet says that the move followed the country’s power shortages last year and is aimed to “insulate [China] from the surge in global commodity prices”. China’s coal imports are down 24% and liquefied natural gas by 11% in the first quarter of 2022, the outlet reports. Separately, Reuters reports that China’s coal output rose “15% in March from the same month a year ago”, with daily production “climbing to a record”. The newswire also cites “concern” from “some coal industry officials” that China “might not maintain record output for long”.

Elsewhere, the National Geographic focuses on the decarbonisation effort of Shanxi province – China’s largest coal-producing region – in an article titled: “Can China’s coal capital transform itself into a solar mecca?” It looks at the region’s effort in “piloting the country’s ‘energy revolution’”. Finally, the Global Times reports that NDRC plans to set standards that would define “price-gouging” in the coal sector. The state-run newspaper described the decision as “the latest move to crack down on illegal activities and stabilise the coal market”. The publication notes that “the move is the latest effort by the Chinese authorities to rein in surging coal prices while avoiding any potential impact on the nation’s economy amid volatile global supplies”, according to Guan Dali, an energy analyst.

The MailOnline covers a new study, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, which investigates the Antarctica’s record low in sea ice extent in February this year. The news website states that since the late 1970s, Antarctic sea ice has been enjoying a “modest increase” of around 1% per decade. However, the Independent notes that with less than 2m square kilometres of ice surrounding the continent in February, marking the end of the Antarctic summer, the extent was the lowest seen since the launch of satellite observations of the poles in 1978. Vice reports that sea ice volumes were nearly nearing 30% lower than the annual average baseline, in some regions, with researchers locating “significant negative anomalies” in sea ice volume levels in the west of the continent, in the Bellingshausen, Amundsen and Weddell seas, and by the Western Indian ocean. For more on the rise and fall of Antarctic sea ice, see Carbon Brief‘s guest post from last year.

A piece by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres in the Guardian reflects on new research published in the journal Nature last week showing that the pledges by countries to reduce emissions made since the Paris Agreement could keep warming within 2C, if met on time. (The stated goal of the agreement is to limit warming to “well below 2C”, preferably to 1.5C, compared to pre-industrial levels.) “On the one hand, we have to acknowledge this looks very much like failure. A 2C world will not be livable for vast swathes of humanity, and half of the world’s children are already at extremely high risk from the impacts now, including hunger-inducing floods and droughts,” Figueres writes. However, she continues by stating that “we have to agree that this new projection based on national commitments portends a far better outcome than we would get without them”. She praises both the decades-long multilateral process of climate negotiations and the power of the decreasing costs of clean technologies, which she says has led us to this point. “The Paris Agreement is working, even if not fast enough,” she writes.

An editorial in the Daily Mirror takes aim at what it sees as the government’s inadequate action to address rising energy prices, amid reports that as four in 10 people are facing fuel poverty in the coming months. “Fatcat bosses have a vested interest in customers paying inflated bills that fund the profits of energy giants. But the failure of the Government to cool searing price rises, with more to come, is also a political as well as cost of living crisis,” it states. The piece continues, noting that while people need urgent help from the government, “Boris Johnson and the Tories are reeling from his partying and law-breaking”. The Daily Mail thinks it has the answer, with its editorial speaking in favour of “axing green levies” on energy bills. “Yes, these fund a range of initiatives – from renewables to household insulation. But many of these taxes, introduced by Labour, have been running for years. A review of their effectiveness is overdue. They were hard to justify even in boom times,” the newspaper states. The Sun also calls for the government to cut “Ed ­Miliband’s green levies on energy”, stating that “with bills soaring they cannot be justified”. A Daily Express editorial (not yet online) also mentions the rising energy costs, calling for reassurance from the government that “the country’s best minds” are working on a solution.

An editorial in the Daily Telegraph considers Europe’s reliance on Russia for energy, amid the continuing war in Ukraine. “The fact remains that almost £1bn is being poured into Russian coffers every day by countries that have imposed sanctions in response to the invasion. For as long as that continues, Putin is winning,” it states. Daily Telegraph financial columnist Matthew Lynn goes further, stating that if Germany does not stop buying Russian gas, “the moment is surely close for sanctions to be imposed on Germany”.

Handelsblatt journalist Kathrin Witsch writes about green hydrogen cost reduction since the price of natural gas has risen to a new record level. The article quotes hydrogen expert Michael Sterner, who says: “Wherever the production of green electricity is cheap, for example with hydropower in Scandinavia or with a lot of wind and sun in Namibia, Power-to-X products such as green ammonia are already cheaper than the fossil alternative”. Witsch continues with an analysis by BloombergNEF which calculated that “one kilogram of grey hydrogen [made with natural gas] currently costs $6.71 in parts of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, compared to $4.84-$6.68 per kilogram for green hydrogen”. (For more on the different types of hydrogen production, see Carbon Brief‘s in-depth explainer.)

The Covid-19 pandemic lowered Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 by about 5.5% – accounting for 58% of total estimated reductions between 2019 and 2020 – according to new research. The authors use econometric models to estimate the effects of the pandemic on emissions in Germany in 2020, both at the national level and for separate economic sectors. “Without Covid-19, all sectors but the transport sector would have met their emissions targets,” study finds.