europe

EU flag. Image courtesy of Pixabay.

NGOs Challenge European Commission’s Undemocratic Omnibus Process

Eight groups lodge formal complaint against the Commission’s rushed dismantling of key pillars of the Green Deal. A coalition of eight NGOs today lodged a formal complaint with the European Ombudsman, condemning the undemocratic, untransparent and rushed way in which the European Commission has developed the Omnibus proposal. The Omnibus … [continued]

ChatGPT generated landscape image of a container ship leaving a Chinese port, filled with electrical equipment crates labeled “Transformers”

Europe Should Buy Chinese Transformers Now Available Due To Trump’s Trade War

The global clean energy transition has been throttled by an unlikely villain: the humble transformer. This once-overlooked piece of grid infrastructure has become one of the most critical bottlenecks in the race to electrify everything. As wind and solar projects stack up, as data centers expand to meet AI-driven demand, … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a European hydrogen bus parked in front of a large, under-construction refueling station with red safety barriers

Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

Two more hydrogen bus trial failures crossed my screen this morning, so I thought I’d share. Both are in Europe, but while one is in the capital of the EU, the other is across the Channel in the heart of the United Kingdom’s oil and gas industry. While I’m at … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of dozens of trucks hauling CO₂ from Ørsted’s Avedøre plant to Asnæs, trailing euro signs like exhaust fumes

Yara, Ørsted, and the €200/ton Mirage: What Northern Lights Really Teaches Us About CCS

Northern Lights, Europe’s flagship cross-border carbon capture and storage project, is now ready to receive carbon dioxide for sequestration, with the first ships in the water and expected to start delivering waste gas from customers this year. It’s being celebrated as a triumph of climate leadership and engineering. But when … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of cross-section showing: LCO₂ ship → Øygarden tanks → high-pressure pumps → subsea pipeline → Johansen reservoir

Beneath the Fjord: Inside Northern Lights’ Carbon Storage Core

The Northern Lights carbon capture and storage project is often described as a logistics system, but at its core, it is a storage facility. The Øygarden terminal, its connecting offshore pipeline, and the Johansen Formation are the infrastructure that turns cross-border CO₂ shipments into permanent geological sequestration. Phase 1 is … [continued]

ChatGPT generated stylized aerial view of Øygarden Northern Lights terminal with multiple ships queuing and tanks labeled by volume

CO₂ By Sea: The Risky Bet Beneath Europe’s Biggest Carbon Storage Project

Northern Lights is Europe’s most ambitious carbon capture and storage project, and possibly the most operationally serious one in the world. It deserves credit for getting past the pilot stage, for designing an end-to-end storage system with real injection capacity, and for contracting with emitters in four different countries. But … [continued]

ChatGPT generated time-split panorama: sepia-tinted 1929 on the left (Ardnacrusha workers building the dam), glossy 2025 on the right (technicians installing grid-scale batteries and offshore cables)

Ireland’s Ardnacrusha Moment, Again: A Blueprint for Full Electrification

In recent months I’ve been assisting with strategy for a couple of emerging European NGOs on key decarbonization acceleration approaches, and one of the key participants asked me an interesting question this morning. This piece answers the question. The first NGO is Supergrid Europe, a Brussels-based organization which will be … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of Airport Geothermal Use: A winter runway with inset showing heat storage aquifer beneath it and arrows showing seasonal heat injection and extraction.

Jane Austen, Directional Drilling & Dublin: Geothermal Lessons With Simon Todd

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Simon Todd, PhD, geologist, expert in geothermal, founder of Causeway Energies, and Irishman, not necessarily in that order, to talk all aspects of geothermal. Despite being often far underground, it’s having a moment in the sun right now, hence a recent … [continued]