A swiftly moving wildfire in Los Angeles County's San Fernando Valley has destroyed at least 25 homes and prompted evacuation orders for more than 100,000 people throughout Friday, the Washington Post reports.
The state of play: The Saddleridge fire erupted in Sylmar, the northernmost part of the valley, around 9 pm on Thursday, as forceful Santa Ana gusts swept through Southern California, AP writes. The flames are engulfing an estimated 800 acres per hour, and the original cause of the fire remains unknown.
Toyota gave birth to the hybrid movement with the U.S. introduction of the Prius in 2000. Sales have been fairly slow, but are expected to take off in the next 5 years as automakers strive to meet higher fuel efficiency standards, according to LMC Automotive.
Driving the news: Hybrids are still more expensive than gasoline-powered cars, but battery prices have fallen enough that it's easier for carmakers to pass along the higher cost to consumers, especially if it's buried among other premium features, says Loehr.
Two pieces of news this morning distill the competing forces acting on oil markets these days.
The big picture: Geopolitical risks in the vital oil producing and transit region can cause short-lived price spikes, but at the same time, a drumbeat of bearish economic news is preventing a sustained price rise.
The International Monetary Fund is calling on major greenhouse gas-emitting countries to implement carbon taxes that reach $75-per-ton by 2030 to bolster today's "inadequate" responses to climate change.
Why it matters: Their new report says the window for keeping temperature rise to manageable levels is "closing rapidly" and that "limiting global warming to 2°C or less requires policy measures on an ambitious scale."
A mysterious oil spill is ravaging Brazil's northeastern coast, killing sea turtles, limiting fishing and littering the sand with clumps of the crude substance, Bloomberg reports.
What's happening: The oil has been creeping onto the coast for more than a month, and officials have not been able to identify its source. Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque notes the oil is likely coming from a leaking ship and that its characteristics are similar to Venezuelan heavy crude — but that does not necessarily indicate that Venezuela is the source. Venezuela’s state oil company has not accepted any responsibility for the issue.
PG&E's decision to turn the power off for nearly 2.7 million people as a precautionary measure to prevent California wildfires could cost the state as much as $2.5 billion, CNBC reports.
What's happening: The total will depend on whether the economic impact is solely based on residential customers, estimated at $65 million, or if commercial and industrial costs will be factored in, Michael Wara of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment says.
The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees have subpoenaed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to turn over documents by Oct. 18 as part of their investigation into President Trump's alleged efforts to push Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
“Recently, public reports have raised questions about any role you may have played in conveying or reinforcing the President’s stark message to the Ukrainian President. These reports have also raised significant questions about your efforts to press Ukrainian officials to change the management structure at a Ukrainian state-owned energy company to benefit individuals involved with Rudy Giuliani’s push to get Ukrainian officials to interfere in our 2020 election.”
— Chairmen Adam Schiff, Eliot Engel and Elijah Cummings
Senate Democrats intend to force a roll call vote next week on EPA regulations that scrapped Obama-era carbon emissions rules for power plants and replaced them with a more modest alternative.
Why it matters: Floor votes on global warming are rare, and the bid to scuttle the Trump administration rule signals Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) increasing emphasis on the topic.
Dyson will discontinue its electric vehicle project, but will continue working on its solid-state battery tech after its cars were deemed not "commercially viable" during testing, the U.K.-based company announced Thursday.
Why it matters, via Axios' Ben Geman: The famed inventor's decision underscores the difficulty of successfully entering the EV market at a time when a suite of startups and legacy automakers are competing to make viable cars.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a request from various media outlets to unseal two redacted names included in a Deutsche Bank letter responding to House subpoenas for President Trump and his family's tax returns.
"[T]he unredacted letter from Deutsche Bank has removed that potential issue from the appeal because that letter reports that the only tax returns it has for individuals or entities named in the subpoenas are not those of the President. In light of that response, information in the sealed letter, i.e., the identity of the two taxpayers whose tax returns Deutsche Bank has, is not relevant to any issue we need to decide."
BP's venture arm announced Thursday that it led a Series A funding round for Grid Edge, a British software company that helps buildings control and cut their energy use.
Why it matters: It's the latest sign of how oil majors are boosting their investments in power technologies, EV charging and other areas outside their dominant fossil fuel lines.
The consortium of Northeast and mid-Atlantic states that have a carbon pricing system for power plants is out with a new report that shows there the money raised is going.
Where it stands: States that belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which auctions pollution "allowances" under its cap-and-trade system, have steered a total of $2.4 billion into those areas since the program launched in 2009, the report shows.
One side effect of California utility PG&E shutting off power to roughly 2 million people to deter wildfires: it's effectively a free ad for distributed generation options.
Why it matters: Distributed energy is an important part of creating more resilient power systems at a time when climate change is putting more stress on grids.
Tesla is taking a calculated risk by using real customers as beta testers for its still-developing Autopilot software, Bloomberg Businessweek's Zachary Mider writes in this week's cover story.
Why it matters: As new technologies roll out on roads, there is debate over whether it's best to wait for self-driving technology to be perfected, or to put incomplete software on the road where it can save lives as it's improved.
