Author: L. Michael Buchsbaum


L. Michael Buchsbaum is an energy and mining journalist and industrial photographer based in Germany. Since the mid-1990s, he has covered the social, environmental, economic and political impacts of the transition from fossil fuels towards renewables for dozens of industry magazines, journals, institutions and corporate clients. Born in the U.S., he emigrated to Germany and Europe to better document the Energiewende. He is also the host of The Global Energy Transition Podcast.

No interest in change: record profits lead oil and gas majors to reduce their climate goals

Despite professing their firm commitment to fighting climate change and expanding into renewable energy, following record profits from war-spiked high energy prices, global oil and gas majors like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are now walking back their rhetoric and reducing whatever modest plans they had to invest in clean energy. And investors have cheered these decisions. Though renewable energy generation is expanding faster than ever, Michael Buchsbaum reviews how this is an object lesson in why relying on market forces alone to push companies into doing the right thing has never been more foolish.

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Guyana: booming offshore oil production transforms it into the world’s newest petro state

Eight years after a consortium led by ExxonMobil announced the discovery of vast oil and gas deposits off the coast of Guyana in May 2015, this small South American country of 800,000 people is now poised to become the world’s fourth-largest offshore oil producer as well as a major fossil gas supplier. The billions of oil dollars pouring into this largely impoverished nation have transformed it into the world’s fastest growing economy. Experts worry that Guyana lacks the expertise and legal and regulatory framework to control the political and economic power of the international oil industry — let alone protect its own environment and rich biodiversity. With Exxon now predicting that Guyana will become a bigger producer than Texas, Michael Buchsbaum sheds a light on this nation’s oil boom and other media outlets sounding an alarm.

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Smokescreen for climate inaction: CCS starts to take off in Saudi Arabia and Europe

Given that oil and gas producers dominate the sector, many environmental groups and civil society organizations suspect that investments in Carbon, Capture and Storage (CCS) are being used to divert attention and resources away from a quicker build-out of renewable energy systems and other proven methods of addressing climate change. At the end of 2022, as several of the world’s largest petrochemical firms announced ambitious CCS investment plans, the European Union finally released a draft of their proposed CCS framework. As lead blogger and podcaster Michael Buchsbaum discusses, hundreds of environmental, climate and civil society groups, including the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, immediately deemed it a “smokescreen for inaction.”

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Biden’s climate push ensures US stays #1 in giant carbon sucking machines

The U.S.’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been hailed as both a jobs-creating infrastructure stimulus and a clean energy booster. To ensure bi-partisan support in the otherwise polarized United States, it also provides generous tax credits for investments in carbon capture and sequestration or carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Beyond the $12 billion in other government support for CCS, bonus funds are now available to prove out experimental “Direct Air Capture” (DAC) technology. Recently Airbus bought 400,000 tons of carbon removal credits from a planned DAC facility in Texas’ oil-soaked Permian Basin. When operational in 2024, owner Occidental Petroleum promises it will be capable of sucking one million tons of CO2 out of the sky every year. And as lead blogger and podcaster Michael Buchsbaum reviews, Oxy will then use that CO2 to produce millions of barrels of climate friendlier “net-zero oil.” Confused? Welcome to America’s suck rush.

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Solution or boondoggle? Evaluating carbon capture technology’s state of global play

Despite our awareness that burning fossil fuels is the biggest driver of climate change, CO2 emissions likely increased by another 1.0% in 2022, hitting a new record high of 36.6bn tonnes. While certainly it would be better to switch to low or no-carbon energy sources, another potential solution, one mainly championed by the oil and gas industry, is to capture as much CO2 as possible and store it underground. Though scientists begrudgingly accept that some mixture of carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems will need to be deployed to avoid dangerous global heating, to date it’s unclear if the technology actually works. Worse, the vast majority of operating CCS plants actually use captured CO2 to produce more oil. But seen as critical to the emerging hydrogen economy as well as solving climate change, with dozens of new CCS projects announced worldwide this year, in this three-part series, lead blogger and podcaster Michael Buchsbaum reviews the scene.

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The promise of Indonesia’s just energy transition and the perils of not getting it right

The world’s fourth most populous country and sixth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, Indonesia’s shift towards cleaner energy is crucial to the success of the Paris Agreement and attempts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. But this developing country’s economy is highly dependent on coal which generates more than half its electricity and its export, primarily for use in coal-fired power plants in other Asia countries, is a major source of revenue. L. Michael Buchsbaum reports.

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Geothermal Iceland: this land of fire and ice is pushing the limits of its natural energy

While much of Europe suffers from escalating fossil fuel prices and fears of winter power cuts, Iceland – which has taken advantage of its natural resources by tapping into the geothermal heat lying deep underneath its soil and harnessing the power of vast amounts of snowmelt cascading from its interior to the ocean, has enjoyed more stable energy prices. Essentially 100% powered by renewable energy, in recent years its attracted a variety of industries, such as aluminum producers and, more recently, data centers. But changing rainfall patterns, rising populations and heavier personal consumption is pushing hot water production to its limits. Nevertheless, the nation is proud of its dependence on geothermal energy, a knowledge-base its long “exported.” Lead blogger and podcaster, Michael Buchsbaum has the story.

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EU smashes renewable records as it urgently breaks free of Russian fossil fuels

Since Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, European Union member states have been feverishly reworking their energy policies to reduce their reliance on Russian gas, coal, and oil. To help accelerate the shift, energy developers are rapidly increasing investments in solar and wind power. This summer, solar, helping the EU tackle not only its energy problem but also soaring inflation. According to a new report by climate think tank Ember, about a quarter of the EU’s electricity now comes from just wind and solar. Combined,  Lead blogger and podcaster Michael Buchsbaum reviews how clean domestic energy is saving EU ratepayers money while helping slow global climate change.

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South Africa secures international aid at COP27 to champion the coal to renewables shift

South Africa’s ambitious plan to transition away from coal was endorsed at the recent COP27 climate conference in Egypt where officials from Britain, France, Germany, the United States, and the European Union signed pledges of $8.5 billion to help fund its initial steps. Currently South Africa relies upon coal to generate up to 87% of its electricity, but by the end of the decade the nation wants to close more than half its aging, unreliable coal-fired power stations and replace them with new solar and renewables. Yet today state-owned energy provider Eskom is struggling to provide consistent electricity. But despite the climate benefits, citizens and miners fear the plan may end up costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, lead to the privatization of Eskom and rapid market liberalization as operators race to construct solar farms near existing coal facilities. Lead blogger and podcaster Michael Buchsbaum reviews the situation. Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this series.

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