Demand for uranium is expected to double by 2040. The 2011 Fukushima disaster created a surplus, but that inventory is running out. Russia and China have secured access to resources in central Asia and Africa, while the French Orano lost its mines in Niger and its mines in Kazakhstan are being depleted and that country reduced its exports to Europe.

Japan is subsidising the commercialisation of Perovskite cells, which are 20 times thinner than regular solar panels. China produces 79%of polysilicon for standard solar cells. By contrast, Perovskite cells’ main ingredient is iodine, for which Chile and Japan are the world’s top suppliers. But Perovskite cells will, initially, be more expensive to make.

China added 94.5GW of coal power capacity in 2024, the highest since 2015. 75% of that was financed by coal mining companies. In the 4th quarter of 2024, fossil fuel generation remained high, while solar and wind utilisation dropped sharply. Coal plants often received “capacity payments” to provide power when renewable electricity generation is low.

UK households paid £1.9 bln to offshore wind to make up the difference between the fixed prices set in producers’ 15-year contracts with the state and actual wholesale prices, which were lower. They will also pay estimated £1.7 bln in 2025 to turn off far-flung wind farms in Scotland when they produce more power than the grid can deliver to towns and cities.

The region’s gas inventories are depleting rapidly this winter. Windless days increase demand for power generation. Storage sites are less than half full, the lowest since 2022. Front-month gas futures closed at €58 per MWh, the highest since February 2023, and prices for summer are so high that it’s unprofitable for energy majors to store the fuel.

Offshore-wind developers in Germany may have to pursue smaller projects in future after the government cut the generation capacity available for leasing. The country is now targeting 40 GW by 2034, instead of 50GW. The move is a response to the “wake effect” - a loss in output from wind farms built too close together, even across the maritime border.

The time it takes to get hold of battery storage equipment is rising. UK energy minister told parliament of waits of up to 4 years for high-voltage- and 2 years for lower voltage equipment due to growing demand. A lot of it comes from China. Transformer prices have risen 40-60% over the past 3 years and lead times have tripled over the past decade.

Germany is still buying significant amounts of Russian liquefied natural gas via other EU countries despite turning away direct shipments to Germany. The EU set a nominal target of expunging all Russian fuel from the bloc by 2027. Most LNG is imported into the EU through Belgium, France and Spain and there is no official data, to where it flows.

The start-up raised $425mn to achieve its target of producing electricity from nuclear fusion in 2028. The start-up has now raised more than $1bn. Nuclear fusion creates no radioactive waste, but scientists have only been able to sustain a reaction of up to a second. Polaris declined to share details about the results of its Polaris reactor.

A fire ignited at the world's largest lithium battery storage facility, releasing a large plume of toxic smoke into the air and raising questions about the safety of the clean-energy storage industry. The battery storage is located 160km south of San Francisco. It is owned by the Texas-based Vistra Energy and has been the site of three other fires since 2019.

Nuclear energy companies led by Westinghouse's eVinci are trying to shrink reactors to the size of shipping containers in a bid to compete with electric batteries and diesel and gas generators used by everything from data centres to offshore oil and gas platforms. Microreactors have an output of up to 20MW and no control room or workers on site.

The selloffs that keep flaring in the world’s bond markets are pushing yields toward key thresholds amid escalating worries about elevated inflation, tempestuous politics and swelling government debts. In the US, the 10-year Treasury yield rose as high as 4.73% and the 20-year yield hit 5%. In the UK, that yield hit 4.82%, the highest since 2008.