Uranium prices have jumped as Kazakhstan, the world’s largest producer of the radioactive material, “struggles to cope with deadly protests that pose the biggest challenge to the country’s leadership in decades”, reports Bloomberg. The price of uranium “surged almost 8% to $45.25 a pound” on Wednesday “on news of Kazakhstan’s unrest and potential supply disruptions”, the outlet says. It notes that “there isn’t an immediate uranium shortage or nuclear power plant shutdowns” as many facilities “have built up stockpiles over the last several years”. Some mining is continuing in the Central Asian nation, with Reuters reporting that French nuclear fuel firm Orano said its operations were still running as they are in an isolated region away from areas hit by unrest. Similarly, Kazatomprom – the world’s biggest uranium producer – said yesterday that it was operating normally with no impact on output or exports, reports Reuters. Canadian company Cameco Corp said yesterday that it could resume production of roughly 24m pounds [almost 11,000 tonnes] of uranium annually in North America if needed, reports Reuters. The Financial Times Lex column notes that uranium prices have “climbed by half” this year, “approaching decade highs on growing nuclear bullishness”.

Oil production is also being affected by protests, reports Reuters, with output at Kazakhstan’s key field Tengiz reduced yesterday as “as some contractors disrupted train lines [used to export oil] in support of protests”. Chevron, the largest foreign oil producer in Kazakhstan with a 50% stake in the Tengizchevroil (TCO) joint venture, said in a statement that “TCO production operations continue; however, there has been a temporary adjustment to output due to logistics”. Reuters explains that “the uprising, which began as protests against a New Year’s Day fuel price hike, swelled on Wednesday, when protesters chanting slogans against [former leader Nursultan] Nazarbayev stormed and torched public buildings in Almaty and other cities”. Russia sent in paratroopers overnight in what the newswire describes as “a gamble by the Kremlin that rapid military force could secure its interests in the oil- and uranium-producing Central Asian nation, by swiftly putting down the worst violence in Kazakhstan’s 30 years of independence”. Reuters also reports that oil prices rose by about 2% yesterday on the back of the escalating unrest in Kazakhstan and supply outages in Libya.

With the internet shut down on Wednesday, the “global computing power of the bitcoin network has dropped sharply”, says another Reuters article. Kazakhstan is the world’s second-largest centre for bitcoin mining after the US, it notes. On the topic of cryptocurrencies, Gillian Tett – chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large, US of the Financial Times – has a piece on why they “cannot easily be painted green”.

British banks NatWest and Barclays are in talks with regulators to provide loans that would allow energy suppliers to spread out the costs of taking on the customers of failed rivals, reports the Financial Times, “partially mitigat[ing] an impending big spike in household gas and electricity bills this year”. The paper continues: “Analysts estimate millions of households’ annual energy bills could rise by more than £700 after a price cap is adjusted upwards in April by industry regulator Ofgem to reflect the higher wholesale prices. But the loans proposal by the watchdog might provide consumers with savings of about £70. Ofgem in December proposed a third-party financing scheme for energy suppliers taking on the customers of failed rivals. Under Ofgem’s proposal, bank finance would allow energy companies to spread the expense of absorbing new customers over an extended period of time – rather than have those costs fall on to consumer bills this year.” According to “people briefed on the situation”, NatWest and Barclays are in discussions with Ofgem – along with other lenders, the paper says.

Meanwhile, the boss of one of the UK’s fastest-growing energy suppliers has warned that it is impossible to know yet how high household energy bills might go after the next review of the price cap, reports BBC News. Octopus Energy’s chief executive Greg Jackson also told the BBC’s Today programme: “The reality is that in the energy sector, the UK buys most of its energy on a global market and we’ve had to pay about £20bn more than usual this year. So in one way or another, the UK’s going to have to pay that money.” He added that talks between energy suppliers and the government would have to find a way to avoid global gas prices being passed directly on to consumers, reports the Guardian. Jackson said: “We’ve got to recognise that as a result of the pandemic, every sector is asking the Treasury for help and there’s not an infinite supply of money.“ The Times says that one option being considered by the government – to extend the warm homes discount, which gives 2.2 million of Britain’s poorest households £140 each towards the cost of energy bills over winter – would see the “vast majority of households” facing higher energy bills. The paper says that “industry sources have pointed out that the discount is funded by social levies which apply to all energy bills. Ofgem, the regulator, puts the cost at £14 per household”. One such source describes the plan as “one customer subsidising another”.

A Sun “exclusive” reports that Chris O’Shea – chief executive of Centrica, which owns British Gas – has urged the UK government to cut taxes rather than resorting to bailouts of struggling energy firms. The paper says: “Britain’s top energy boss says that, as well as scrapping green taxes, the pain can be eased if the PM U-turns on his opposition to a VAT cut on bills. That would save another £100 a year on average. And Mr O’Shea, in an article for The Sun [not yet online], urges Boris Johnson to go even further by ‘stripping environmental and social levies out of energy bills, funding green programmes via general taxation instead’.” The paper says that “Chancellor Rishi Sunak hinted last night at further backing coming”. Speaking at a vaccination centre in Haywards Heath, he said: “I understand people’s concern about energy bills…we are always listening, making sure the policy we have got will support people in the way we want it to.“ The Guardian says that the Treasury “is understood to be examining targeted measures to help vulnerable consumers with higher bills, such as extending the warm homes discount, but Sunak is thought to be sceptical of cutting VAT”. The paper also reports that No 10 has ruled out delaying a rise in national insurance this April “despite increasing concern among Tory MPs and cabinet ministers over the toll on voters of the cost of living”. The Guardian looks at the options available to the UK government to ease rising energy costs.

At the same time, Reuters reports that “sky-high European demand drove US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to a record in December”. And Reuters also reports that European and British wholesale gas prices rose again yesterday “as supplies along a major pipeline which usually carries gas from Russia to Europe flowed in reverse for a 17th successive day”. The newswire explains: “Eastbound volumes on the Yamal-Europe pipeline, from Germany to Poland, increased sharply earlier in the day…dashing hopes for a resumption of Russian gas deliveries after a slowing of reverse flows on Wednesday.”

The Hunterston B nuclear power station – one of eight nuclear facilities remaining in the UK and one of two in Scotland – will today be permanently shut down, reports the Times – almost 46 years after it started generating electricity. Bosses at the plant in North Ayrshire said it had produced enough energy to power every home in Scotland for nearly 31 years since it came on line, the paper reports, adding that the plant was originally scheduled to generate electricity for 25 years. BusinessGreen says that “safety concerns arose in recent years after cracks were found in the graphite bricks surrounding the reactor core, prompting EDF Energy to bring forward the site’s latest decommissioning date of 2023 by a year”. Reuters says that “Britain’s nuclear power plants can supply around 20% of the country’s electricity demand, but around half are set to close in the next four years as they reach the end of their currently scheduled lifespan”. The Guardian notes that “the rapid pace of the decommissioning schedule has raised concerns about maintaining electricity generation”. A Scottish government spokesperson said that Hunterston B has “played an important role in supporting Scotland’s energy requirements”, reports the Daily Record, but that the government does “remain clear in our opposition to the building of new nuclear power plants in Scotland under current technologies”. The spokesperson added: “Significant growth in renewables, storage, hydrogen and carbon capture provide the best pathway to net-zero by 2045, and will deliver the decarbonisation we need to see across industry, heat and transport.

Elsewere, Reuters reports that the French government expects plans for new nuclear reactors to be submitted around 2023 with a target date of 2035-37 for the reactors to go online. Junior environment minister Berangere Abba told the French newspaper Le Figaro that the new reactors would be EPR2 models – improved versions of utility EDF’s troubled EPR model, which has suffered years of delays and billions of euros of cost overruns on models under construction in France and Finland, Reuters reports. The newswire adds: “Previously, the government had said it would not launch any new third-generation EPR reactor projects until state-owned EDF’s much-delayed EPR nuclear power plant in Flamanville, northwestern France, is completed.”

Brazil will continue to use and subsidise coal as an energy source until at least 2040, according to a “just energy transition” law published yesterday, reports the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The new law “benefits coal producers in southern Santa Catarina state by prolonging the activities of coal-based power plants in the region for a further 18 years”, the outlet says. It notes that “under previous policies, Brazilian subsidies for thermal coal-powered plants were supposed to end by 2027, and the authorisation for three large plants in Santa Catarina to operate was meant to expire in 2025”. The new law “reverses that”, the outlet says, “stating the government must buy, at a set cost, energy generated by a group of thermal plants in Santa Catarina” and mandating that “80% of the energy be produced from coal mined in the region”. Ricardo Baitelo, a project coordinator at the Institute of Energy and Environment (IEMA), a Brazilian non-profit, described the move as “bad news for consumers and the environment”.

Meanwhile, Reuters also reports that “Brazil will stop monitoring deforestation in the Cerrado, the world’s most species-rich savannah”. The decision to stop monitoring the Cerrado was made because of budget cuts, said Claudio Almeida, a scientist who coordinates satellite monitoring at national space research agency Inpe, the newswire explains. Almeida said that Inpe will no longer produce annual figures for Cerrado deforestation unless it is able to find a new source of funding. A “minimal team” will continue producing monthly deforestation figures for the Cerrado but will run out of money in six months or less, he said. The news comes as Inpe data shows that deforestation and other clearances of native vegetation in the Cerrado rose 8% to a six-year high of 8,531 square kilometres in the 12 months to July, reports Reuters.

Bloomberg reports that “China’s regulators have proposed cutting carbon allowances as the government seeks to raise the cost of pollution on its fledgling market for trading emissions”. The outlet cites “a draft of the plan” viewed by it. It notes that the possible move on the national emissions trading market (ETS) – which went online last July – “suggests that Beijing is keen to step-up the role of carbon trading to help meet its promise of peaking emissions by 2030 and getting to net-zero by 2060”. The draft shows that “the most stringent proposal is to cut allowances to 1% below the amount of carbon that market participants are expected to have generated”, the report adds. (Carbon Brief has analysed China’s national ETS in an in-depth Q&A.) Meanwhile, S&P Global Platts says that “China’s national carbon market will move into a phase of expansion and capacity building in 2022”. The website notes that the move “will widen the scope of the emissions trading scheme to cover more sectors, as well as develop carbon trading infrastructure and capabilities across provinces, companies and exchanges”. CGTN – the English arm of China’s state broadcaster CCTV – reports that China’s national ETS “saw 7.66bn yuan (about $1.2bn) in turnover in 2021”. It cites state-run China National Radio. Furthermore, Energy Monitor has an article titled: “Carbon trading the Chinese way.” The piece is written by Renato Roldao, vice-president of international consultancy ICF.

Separately, China.org.cn reposts a Xinhua report, which says that “China will make all-out efforts to ensure coal production and keep coal prices at a reasonable level in 2022”. The article writes: “As measures to increase production have paid off, the coal supply and demand have continued to improve, with intelligent and green energy playing a big role in energy supply.” (China.org.cn describes itself as an “authorised government portal site to China”.) In addition, Xinhua – the state news agency – reports that Inner Mongolia “is estimated to have produced more than 1.05bn tonnes of coal in 2021, a rise from 1.006bn tonnes in 2020”. The report cites the regional Energy Bureau. (This week’s China Briefing reported on the progress of a new major coal-fired power plant in Inner Mongolia.)

Finally, the Conversation has a piece on why “China probably won’t dominate the electric car market this year”.

Rolling Stone magazine reports on an interview with former US president Donald Trump by American right-wing political commentator and radio host Glenn Beck. The interview “began on the topic of energy, which they described as one of the biggest problems facing America”, the article says. It continues: “Trump decried the Biden administration’s reversal of his attempt to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which he blamed for high gas prices, claiming that gas in California is as expensive as $7.77 per gallon. According to AAA, gas prices in California are averaging $4.66 for a gallon of regular, a little more than a dollar-per-gallon difference from the national average as of 5 January.” Trump also “bashed wind power”, the article reports, with the former president claiming that it “kills all your birds and ruins your, I mean, these magnificent landscapes are being just decimated by wind”. Trump also “bragg[ed] about ending the Paris Climate Accord”, the article says.

The UK is “lurching from crisis to crisis with no plan to fix the root cause of our problems”, says a Guardian editorial. The paper says prime minister Boris Johnson is “in denial about this problem while people face going cold and hungry in their homes”. It continues: “Prices are driven higher by global energy costs, set by cartels such as OPEC or gas producers such as Russia. However, the price at which electricity and gas is supplied to the UK’s companies and households could be capped and a windfall tax on oil companies used to reimburse suppliers. State intervention could help ordinary households – but ministers say that this would be at the expense of ‘this country’s reputation as a hub of international capital and investment’.” The government “could also permanently reduce bills for the long term by insulating homes”, the paper suggests, adding that “a bold move would be to redesign the electricity market so that gas no longer sets the price”. However, “nothing is done as the prime minister is hemmed in by a growing anti-green bloc of backbench MPs determined to stop a net-zero transformation of the economy from taking place”, the paper says.

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Sun criticises the UK government for “knock[ing] back the entirely sensible proposal to bin or delay the National Insurance tax hike in April” as well as being “cold on the Sun’s call to lop VAT off energy bills” or “remove pricey green levies”. The reason for the “dispiriting”stubbornness is “doubtless because they are terrified of being torn apart by the Left for backtracking on net-zero pledges”. The paper continues: “Sadly, that is now a common theme. On so many issues successive Tory governments have been unduly cowed by noisy social media critics who will never, ever vote for them anyway. Take their timid surrender to eco-hysterics whose baseless propaganda successfully smothered fracking at birth. Britain should have been extracting shale gas for a decade now to achieve energy self-sufficiency and stable prices. But we will never enjoy that cheap gas. Instead, when the heart-stopping bills for the imported stuff land in April we will just be left to cough up.”

In related comment, an analysis piece by Jessica Elgot – the Guardian‘s chief political correspondent – says that while Covid has been “the big dividing line with his backbenchers…a cost of living crisis has the potential to be the much more serious matter in 2022, and the prime minister told aides he wanted work to begin on what other mitigations for rising energy prices might be necessary”. Elgot adds: “The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is not minded to pursue major interventions. And Johnson’s problem is that many of the options open to him will fall short. Of what has been suggested so far, such as an extension of the warm homes discount or even a VAT cut on bills, nothing is likely to make much of a dent in the eye-watering rises consumers are likely to see.”

Ben Marlow – the Daily Telegraph’s chief city commentator – writes that the “open revolt within the Cabinet over national insurance hikes speaks to the scale of the problem that Boris Johnson is facing”. However, the prime minister can now “add rip-off petrol prices” to the “growing list of cost hikes that threaten to wreck the finances of millions”, says Marlow. Citing reports that petrol retailers of failing to pass on wholesale price cuts to motorists, Marlow says that “whatever the truth, there’s no denying that drivers feel they aren’t being treated fairly”. He adds: “Campaigners see it as part of a wider war against the large majority of motorists who have yet to make the switch to electric vehicles despite increased taxes on petrol models and moves to restrict journeys into major cities, or ban them altogether in some.”

Chris Giles – economics editor for the Financial Times – says that “the surge in wholesale gas prices has demonstrated rot at the core of the UK energy sector”. He continues: “With minimal domestic gas storage facilities and a retail energy market far too closely entwined with spot wholesale gas prices, the industry, regulator Ofgem and ministers deserve to feel the full force of consumer anger.” All potential solutions “are difficult and expensive”, says Giles. For example, Giles says: “If Rishi Sunak wanted to mitigate the increase by socialising the total cost, taxpayers would face a bill of £20bn a year to lower bills by £723 for the 28.5m domestic households connected to the electricity grid. That is far more than the annual £12bn plan announced last September to repair the NHS and fix social care. It is not going to happen.” The Financial Times Lex column says the government should “resist the temptation” of a windfall tax on oil and gas businesses to help subsidise domestic energy costs. It warns: “Windfall taxes encourage businesses to factor the risk of tax raids into investment plans. Unless they are a response to a one-off event, imposing a retrospective tax will change behaviour. Only a cockeyed optimist could argue that high gas prices are transitory.” And, finally, a Financial Times Energy Source column picks out “three top energy themes of 2022”, asking: “Can energy inflation be tamed?”; “Can US oil and gas boom again under Biden?”; and “Can the world stop the rise in carbon emissions?”

A new study finds that the combined emissions of the world’s five highest-emitting countries have an outsized role in driving regional climate change. Researchers use climate models that account for both historical emissions and those projected under countries’ current national climate pledges to determine the contribution of China, US, EU, India and Russia to the frequency of “extreme hot years” around the world. They find that those five countries’ emissions double the number of countries expected to experience these extremes every other year by 2030. They also find that if every country in the world had the same per-capita CO2 emissions as the US, global temperatures would be 0.4C higher in 2030 than currently projected.

Shifts in the types of fish species – not changes to the size of individual fish themselves – are the main drivers of warming-related fish shrinkage off the coast of Peru, according to a new study. Using palaeoclimate data, including fish bones, scientists reconstruct the temperature and the abundance of different fish species during the last interglacial period around 100,000 years ago. The researchers find that during that period, smaller fish were much more abundant in the region, while now-dominant anchovies were scarce. They state that these smaller fish “are more difficult to harvest and are less palatable than anchovies” and conclude that “our rapidly warming world poses a threat to the global fish supply”.