The futures trade lower again on Friday as we prepare to end a brutal week for stocks that saw some of the most significant spikes in volatility since earlier this year. The song remains the same as worries over AI and data center-fueled tech bubbles continue to reverberate across Wall Street. The fact that job cuts in October were the highest in over 20 years tossed some extra fuel on the selling fire.
The joint Dutch-German venture, which received the green light from regional authorities last month, seeks to extract 13bn cubic metres of gas from just outside a protected area at the marine border between the two countries. Campaigners have criticised the project because it will mean drill for gas more than four years after the International Energy Agency warned that new oil and gas development was incompatible with its roadmap to stop the planet heating by 1.5C (2.7F).
There's a clear tension between developed and emerging economies regarding how to achieve the energy transition. While Europe insists that the time has come to accelerate the pace, Asia, Latin America and Africa are experiencing lags in economic growth, which hinder the monumental leap toward wind or solar generation. In this debate, some parties propose natural gas as a transitional fuel: it pollutes less than other fossil fuels, it's more accessible, and it's seen as a first step in the direction of renewable energy.
With electricity prices rising at more than twice the rate of inflation, President Donald Trump has lashed out at renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, blaming them for skyrocketing energy costs. Trump called wind and solar power "THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!" in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or "farmer destroying Solar" projects. "The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!" he wrote on his Truth Social site.
Environmental advocates warn that the expansion of two compressor stations along Transco's pipeline in North Carolina will lead to significant increases in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
"Meta's decision to power its data centers with fossil fuels while claiming net zero status is deeply troubling. This isn't leadership-it's greenwashing."
"This is truly a transformational transaction," said Elizabeth Wademan, president and CEO of Crown corporation Canada Development Investment Corp., which owns the Indigenous loan guarantee corporation. "It actually represents the largest loan guarantee that will be issued ever, as well as the largest number of Indigenous nations participating."
"I think this is one of those key moments that is extremely upsetting and yet super predictable, which is that the energy planning and the poor decisions that get made five, eight years prior to that now are starting to show up in those supply mixes."
