Keystone XL starts construction - Update

Update: Construction has been righteously blocked again.

Original story: Bad news. Specifically, at a site on the Montana/Canada border. Also, I hadn’t been aware that the government of Alberta, Canada, ended up funding it because private lenders wanted no part.

Alberta's recent announcement that it was investing more than $1 billion to build the Keystone XL pipeline gave a boost to a project that has faced more than a decade of delays and uncertainty.

But by dedicating government money to a pipeline the private sector has been reluctant to fund, the decision highlights how vulnerable Canada's oil sands industry has become, even before the coronavirus pandemic crashed global oil demand.

Last week, Alberta announced it would invest $1.1 billion in the pipeline and provide an additional $4.2 billion in loan guarantees to help developer TC Energy start construction immediately. Premier Jason Kenney said his government had been negotiating with the company for months, and that no private sector bidders were ready to finance the project. - Inside Climate News

On the same general subject, though this one is righteous:

Globally, renewable energy sectors including wind, solar, and hydropower are booming. The world is using more renewable energy than ever before. Over one third of the world’s electricity comes from renewable sources, according to data released by the International Renewable Energy Agency, or Irena, on Monday.

From 2018 to 2019, new renewable energy capacity construction slowed down slightly. But since the world also built less new fossil fuel infrastructure, renewables share in energy expansion grew. A record-breaking 72 percent of all the new electricity sources the world installed in 2019 were renewable. - Earther

Prognostications as to what the Trump Crash will mean for renewables are all over the place, from what I’ve seen.