Welcome to Grid Brief! Here’s what we’re looking at today: Ontario announced three new SMRs, Asia’s plan to use hydrogen and ammonia to cut emissions may have opposite effect, labor disputes continue to plague the Sierra Club, and more.

Ontario Goes Big On SMRs

Ontario is betting on nuclear to tackle climate change and potential oncoming shortfalls. Last week, the Ontario government announced its collaboration with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to initiate the process of planning and obtaining licenses for three more GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) BWRX-300 small modular reactors.

"Once deployed, these four units would produce a total 1200 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to powering 1.2 million homes, helping to meet increasing demand from electrification and fuel the province's strong economic growth," the Ontario government said.

"A fleet of SMRs at the Darlington New Nuclear Site is key to meeting growing electricity demands and net-zero goals," said OPG President and CEO Ken Hartwick. "OPG has proven its large nuclear project expertise through the on-time, on budget Darlington Refurbishment project. By taking a similar approach to building a fleet of SMRs, we will deliver cost and schedule savings, and power 1.2 million homes from this site by the mid-2030s."

This addition will bring the total number of reactors at the Darlington plant site to four.

Asia’s Co-firing Snag

Some Asian countries have announced that they want to blend ammonia with coal and hydrogen with gas to cut emissions. But will it work? Likely not, according to a new report from the Breakthrough Institute.

“In the first place, co-firing of ammonia or hydrogen in a coal or gas plant at a 20% or 30% fraction still leaves 80% to 70% of the fossil fuel emissions associated with that power generation. Furthermore, compression and liquefaction of hydrogen for transoceanic shipping require significant electricity inputs, while 10% to 20% of the hydrogen cargo may disappear via losses during a long sea voyage,” reads the report. “Finally, if suppliers produce the ammonia and hydrogen using fossil fuels, ammonia and hydrogen co-combustion in fossil power plants can actually result in considerably more carbon emissions than if the power plants were to burn only pure coal or natural gas.”

The report is one more needle in the hydrogen bubble.

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Sierra Club Labor Fight Continues

The Sierra Club, one of the largest and oldest anti-nuclear environmental non-profits in America, continues to struggle with ongoing labor disputes.

The 130-year-old organization announced a massive restructuring to handle its $40 million budget shortfall. The Sierra Club announced 400 layoffs in May.

“Under the terms of its collective bargaining agreement with the Progressive Workers Union, or PWU, which represents nearly 400 Sierra Club employees, the group is also required to negotiate over the impact that the restructuring process will have on union members,” reports The New Republic. “For more than two months, the union and the nonprofit have been going back and forth about the terms of its restructuring. It’s getting ugly.”

Last week, the Sierra Club and the PWU engaged in negotiations regarding restructuring and layoffs. The Sierra Club presented its final offer to the PWU four days ago. If the union does not accept by today, the Sierra Club plans to declare an impasse. The PWU disputes the claim of an impasse, citing the Sierra Club's refusal to bargain on important aspects of the restructuring and provide requested information.

If an impasse is declared, the Sierra Club could unilaterally impose provisions not covered by the contract, potentially leading to further unfair labor practice charges. If that happens, then the National Labor Review Board may have to intervene.

Conversation Starters

• The curious case of the cluster of Saudi tankers off the coast of Egypt. “The number of Saudi supertankers carrying oil and sitting offshore Egypt increased again on Friday, according to vessel tracking data monitored by Bloomberg, after signs emerged earlier this week that the previous large cluster had started to clear. An unusual cluster of mostly Saudi supertankers loaded with oil has been idling off Egypt’s Red Sea coast since early June,” reports Oilprice.com. “It wasn’t immediately clear what has caused the accumulation of tankers, while Saudi Arabia hasn’t commented on the build-up of cargoes off Egypt. Most supertankers carrying Saudi Arabian crude typically deliver the oil to Ain Sukhna without transiting the Suez Canal. The most likely reason is a lack of storage.”

• Pemex sees a deadly offshore rig fire. “Mexican oil company Pemex estimates that a deadly fire on a major offshore platform off the southern edge of the Gulf of Mexico has led to the loss of 700,000 barrels of crude oil production so far, while one person remains missing, the CEO of the state company, Octavio Romero, said on Saturday,” reports Reuters. “The fire started early Friday on the Nohoch-A link platform of the company's Cantarell Field and later moved to a compression complex, killing two people. The fire has since been controlled, the company said.”

• Two New Mexico counties produced nearly a third of the Permian’s output last year. “In southeastern New Mexico, horizontal wells in Lea and Eddy counties drove much of the recent growth in Permian Basin crude oil output. Output from horizontal wells in the two counties accounted for 29% of all crude oil production in the Permian Basin in the first quarter of 2023, averaging 1.7 million barrels per day (b/d), according to data from Enverus. The Permian Basin is the largest oil-producing basin in the United States, spanning 66 counties in southeastern New Mexico and western Texas,” reports the Energy Information Administration. “Permian crude oil output increased to 5.7 million b/d in March, the most recent month for which data are available. That amount of output compares to an average of 5.3 million b/d in 2022 and 4.7 million b/d in 2021. Horizontal wells in Lea and Eddy counties accounted for 60% of total growth in the region in the first quarter of 2023, compared with 44% in first-quarter 2022.”

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