Saga Metals Radar Titanium Project in Labrador, Canada, Could Help Re-Balance Global Titanium Supplies as the Minerals-Rich Grenville Province Continues to Be Explored

The Grenville Province and the Supercontinent Rodinia

    The Grenville Province, mainly in Eastern Canada but also into the Northeast U.S., is a very old, Precambrian-aged continental collision with associated mafic intrusions that host ore bodies containing iron, vanadium, and titanium. These occur as enriched titanomagnetite. Saga Metals is currently evaluating and developing its Radar Project to produce titanium in coastal Labrador, Canada.

      The Grenville Province was once a vast mountain chain across the supercontinent Rodinia, and today spans Labrador, Quebec, and the North American east coast, with equivalents in Scandinavia.

 

Titanium Properties, Uses, and Market Dynamics

     Titanium is a very important mineral for a number of reasons. It is a metal with unique properties related to its high strength-to-weight ratio, low density, ductility, corrosion resistance, high melting point, and low electrical and thermal conductivity. It is a key component of many products. I remember Popular Mechanics once had a contest to find new uses for titanium based on its unique properties. Titanium alloys have many uses in aerospace, weapons, and many other industries. It is also used as a pigment, in jewelry, and for things like medical devices and nuclear reactors. It is vital for drones and satellites. It is utilized in the form of titanium dioxide (TiO2). Its mineral source is mainly from rutile and ilmenite ores. The U.S. and Canada both designate titanium as a critical mineral.

     China produces the most titanium, followed distantly by Mozambique and South Africa. That may change a bit as this new potential Eastern Canadian source can deliver.

     Demand for titanium is expected to increase, led by the energy sector, as more nuclear reactors, offshore oil and wind facilities, and perovskite solar panels are built. An article in Capital Trends notes titanium’s supply, demand, and North American vulnerabilities:

“Today, China holds the second-largest titanium reserves, produces about one-third of the world’s mined supply, and controls roughly two-thirds of the refined product known as titanium sponge. Over the past decade, China has more than doubled its sponge production, while U.S. output has collapsed to just 2% of what it was in 2013.”

“At the same time, demand is projected to grow at a 6.2% CAGR through 2030, but if supply chains tighten, prices could climb much faster.”

     China’s mineral production and refining dominance is being leveraged against Trump tariffs, which also compounds supply and demand issues and amplifies uncertainties.

 

Saga Metals Grenville Province Radar Project Ore Geology

     The Saga Metals Radar Project has revealed one of the largest vanadiferous titanomagnetite (VTM) anomalies ever identified in North America. The Capital Trends article gives some possible implications of this very significant find:

“The entire Dykes River intrusion spans more than 160 square kilometers and recent drilling confirmed oxide layering thicknesses of up to 400 meters, it dwarfs many of the world’s known titanium systems.”

“Geophysical surveys have been so strong they maxed out Saga’s equipment. Magnetometer readings in the Hawkeye Zone averaged 74,000 nanoteslas, while the Trapper Zone spiked above 120,000. That’s beyond the detection limit of the instruments.”

“Initial drilling has barely scratched the surface, covering just 1/40th of Radar’s inferred 20-kilometer oxide layering strike length. Even so, results have been striking: Iron concentrations up to 43%, titanium up to 9.4%, and vanadium up to 0.66%.”

“The significant length-weighted averages at Hawkeye are in the range of 20 to 35% VTM. In other mafic layered intrusions, that tenor of mineralization lies within an economic range. This includes China’s flagship VTM Panzhihua deposit which produces nearly 40% of the world’s vanadium.[31] Notably, while Panzhihua’s mineralized layers range from just 1 to 30 meters in thickness[32], Radar’s extend between 300-400 meters.”

     Geological consultant Paul McGuigan thinks that the Radar Project drilling and assay results show a unique and concentrated source as a coarse-grained and clean VTM deposit with an unusually high concentration of vanadium, which he says is a rare combination. Sample uniformity also suggests that the targeted oxide anomaly may have been formed in a single massive volcanic pulse, creating a single large ore body rather than a series of separated smaller anomalies.

 

Titanium Mines Are Profitable: Market Trends and Radar Project’s Market Advantages

     As the article in Capital Trends points out, the company Empire Metals' stock has risen by 730% in recent months. The company is advancing its Pitfield Project in Western Australia, a globally significant “soft rock” titanium system with exploration targets in the tens of billions of tons.   

     Saga’s current drill program is aiming for an initial resource calculation within a year. It has interesting market advantages as well that could speed up development and decrease costs. These include its location near an industrial hub, a deep seaport, paved roads, an airstrip, access trails for mining equipment, and a skilled workforce. It can also take advantage of available local, inexpensive hydropower. It also benefits from Canada’s mine-friendly regulatory environment. Saga’s portfolio, all in the Grenville Province, also includes lithium, uranium, and iron mining projects. They are partnered with mining giant Rio Tinto in their lithium project. Saga succinctly explains the potential value of the Radar Project on their website:

“Vanadiferous titanomagnetite (VTM) deposits are largely concentrated in Russia and China, creating supply vulnerabilities for North America. Saga Metals’ Radar Project represents a rare opportunity to potentially establish a secure domestic source of titanium, vanadium, and iron ore — minerals essential to aerospace, defense, advanced batteries, steelmaking, and renewable energy systems. Titanium strengthens critical alloys, vanadium enhances steel and enables grid-scale storage, while iron ore underpins global infrastructure. Developing Radar could reduce foreign dependence, fortify national security, and help position North America at the forefront of the clean energy and critical minerals economy.”

 

References:

  

‍A Western Rival to China’s Largest Titanium Mine. Capital Trends. A Western Rival to China’s Largest Titanium Mine

Radar Titanium Project. Saga Metals. Radar Titanium Project - Saga Metals Corp

Critical Minerals for the Green Energy Revolution. CORPORATE PRESENTATION | Q3 2025. SAGAMETALS.COM. Corporate-Presentation-Saga-Metals-Corp.pdf

Titanium. Wikipedia. Titanium - Wikipedia

Titanium production by country. Wikipedia. Titanium production by country - Wikipedia

Grenville Province, Quebec: Lexique stratigraphique – en. Ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts. 2018. Grenville Province

 

 

BW Energy is Drilling to Possibly Test for Deeper Oil Pool in Kudu Block of Orange Basin Offshore Namibia: Presence of Diamondoids Suggests Dry Gas May Originate from Deeper Oil Source

Orange Basin Geology

     The Orange Basin, offshore Namibia and South Africa, became an oil & gas exploration hotspot in 2022 with major players like TotalEnergies and Shell. Chevron discovered the Kudu gas field in 1974 with an estimated 1.3 TCF of gas in place, but the field is not productive due to economics, lack of infrastructure, and rocks that may not have adequate permeability. In 2012, Brazil’s Petrobras tried to repeat what they had found in their pre-salt plays on the South American side in the Campos and Santos Basins of the once connected rocks split by the mid-ocean rift system, but were unsuccessful. Before mid-ocean rifting, the Orange Basin was once connected as a single basin to the Pelotas Basin offshore Brazil and Uruguay, as shown and compared below in different parameters.

     The Orange Basin started as a continental rift zone in Late Jurassic time (about 150mya), resulting in half-grabens filling with syn-rift (deposition contemporaneous with rifting) clastic and lacustrine sediments. Later, the basin transformed to ocean-floor rifting with flood basalts spreading. Orange Basin reservoir rocks are mostly Cretaceous-aged marine sandstones. Turonian source rocks are present above the reservoirs, and Aptian source rocks are present below the reservoirs. Trapping is typically a combination of structural and stratigraphic. The syn-rift deposits may have deeper lacustrine source rocks within their restricted area.

     Unfortunately, in January 2025, Shell wrote off about $400 million in Orange Basin projects due to higher gas-to-oil ratios than expected and inadequate reservoir permeability in their Graff field. The low permeability is thought to be a result of pore clogging by clay or chlorite, or secondary calcite cementation. TotalEnergies’ nearby Venus field also suffers from the permeability issue, and they are still evaluating whether to develop the field and plan to decide in 2026.

     BW Energy, a Norwegian firm, is currently drilling the Kharas-1 well updip to the Kudu gas field, and according to some geologists, possibly looking for deeper oil as well. Rasoul Sorkhabi, in an article for AAPG Explorer, gives a synopsis of the challenges and opportunities of the basin:

“The maximum width and depth of Orange Basin is fashioned by the Orange river delta and further exploration is expected to focus on this depocenter. Namibian discoveries have attracted international attention to Orange Basin and there are still a few undrilled prospects (for example, Ushivi in PEL 56 and Olympe in PEL 91) in Namibia. However, most of Orange Basin is located offshore South Africa. Currently, TotalEnergies and Eco Atlantic (Azinam) are well positioned in South African Orange Basin.”

“For 24 wells drilled in the Namibian Orange Basin since 2022, success rate of 75-percent is impressive. Nevertheless, drilling in water depths of 2,000 meters into reservoirs 3,000 meters or deeper below the sea floor is a costly venture and the exploration will require derisking geological factors and suitable economic propositions.”

     The Mopane 1X and 2X wells, drilled by Galp in 2024, revealed a light oil play west of the Kudu gas field. This discovery may have influenced BW Energy to drill updip of the Kudu gas field, looking for better rock quality. In September 2025, Rhino Resources finished drilling the Volans-1X, which reported commercial quantities of rich-gas condensate at 40 ° API gravity in good reservoir quality rock. The well is still being evaluated.

 

The Kudu Gas Field and the Possibility of Deeper Source Rocks

     The Kudu gas field is developed in syn-rift sediments of an inner sub-basin below the Aptian source rocks and may result from deeper Lower Cretaceous continental source rocks. 

     Some possible evidence for deeper source rocks is the presence of diamondoids. The origin and occurrence of diamondoids are explained in Wikipedia:

“Diamondoids are found in mature high-temperature petroleum fluids (volatile oils, condensates and wet gases). These fluids can have up to a spoonful of diamondoids per US gallon (3.78 liters). A review by Mello and Moldowan in 2005 showed that although the carbon in diamonds is not biological in origin, the diamondoids found in petroleum are composed of carbon from biological sources. This was determined by comparing the ratios of carbon isotopes present.”

“In chemistry, diamondoids are g. eneralizations of the carbon cage molecule known as adamantane (C10H16), the smallest unit cage structure of the diamond crystal lattice.”

     Diamondoids are hydrocarbons with high thermal stability. The presence of diamondoids suggests that the Kudu gas is sourced from cracked oil. Henk Komrick for GeoExPro gives some details of the possible objectives of the Kharas-1 well.

“Gion Kuper, who studied the Kudu field extensively when he worked for Tullow Oil as a petroleum systems expert, thinks that it is plausible that the Kudu gas migrated into the currently mapped closure from other places. “The main reason for this,” he says, “is that the current temperature in the Kudu reservoir, although around 160 °C, is still a bit low for the extensive level of thermal cracking suggested by the geochemical data.” It is also thought that temperatures may not have been much higher in the past. This makes a case for another accumulation to exist, possibly nearby, although finding oil may be a stretch.”

“It is that slightly deeper reservoir that BW Energy might be trying to prove now, in the hope that there is oil remaining. Finding a deeper level of hydrocarbons would also imply that a deeper, potentially lacustrine source rock – older than the Barremian-Aptian Kudu Shale source rock overlying the gas reservoir – is involved in generating the bulk of the hydrocarbons for Kudu.”

“In addition to hydrocarbon phase, reservoir quality in the Kudu target might be one of the key risks,” adds Gion. “At these elevated temperatures, cementation can be a significant issue, as we have also seen with other discoveries nearby.” Saying that, if the oil was cracked in another place on the Kudu structure, there must be something somewhere, so it is probably worth drilling into it. Let’s see if BW Energy can make Kudu gas, and maybe oil, work.”

     According to Oil Price US: BW Energy is moving ahead with an ambitious goal to triple its oil production to 90,000 barrels per day within three years, “driven by a mix of organic growth, exploration success, and strategic acquisitions across Africa and South America.” The Kharas-1 well may be targeting an updip equivalent of the Mopane reservoir sand and possibly test for deeper oil as well. The results could be interesting and will maybe be known soon.

  

 

References:

 

BW Energy Targets 90,000 BPD as Kudu Basin Drilling Heats Up. Charles Kennedy. Oil Price US. October 8, 2025. BW Energy Targets 90,000 BPD as Kudu Basin Drilling Heats Up

Diamondoid. Wikipedia. Diamondoid - Wikipedia

Kharas-1 well might have two surprises in store: BW Energy is currently drilling a well in Namibian waters that aims to further appraise the wider Kudu block, as well as a shallower target that could be equivalent in age to Mopane. Henk Kombrink. GeoExPro. October 3, 2025. Kharas-1 well might have two surprises in store - GeoExpro

New light oil discovery draws attention away from the Orange Basin central axis to northern promise. Peter Elliott – Nventures. GeoExPro. February 9, 2024. New light oil discovery draws attention away from the Orange Basin central axis to northern promise - GeoExpro

Orange Basin of Africa: Progress, problems and prospects. Rasoul Sorkhabi. AAPG Explorer. September 1, 2025. Orange Basin of Africa

Chasing the Orange Basin from Namibia to Brazil. Africa Oil+Gas Report. Geosciences. February 15, 2024. Chasing the Orange Basin from Namibia to Brazil - Africa’s premier report on the oil, gas and energy landscape.

Rhino announces Volans-1X probe as high liquid-yield gas condensate discovery in excellent quality reservoir. Rhino Resources. October 1, 2025. Rhino announces Volans-1X probe as high liquid-yield gas condensate discovery in excellent quality reservoir - Rhino Resources

Tungsten: Chinese Export Control in Response to Tariffs Drives Up Oil & Gas Drill Bit Costs

     China has used its critical minerals mining and processing leverage before and continues to do so, especially to counteract Trump tariffs.

     According to Reuters:

“Tungsten makes up as much as 75% of the drillbits deployed in oilfields. The metal's price has surged to over $600 per metric ton unit from around $330–$340 in early February, when Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods and Beijing hit back with curbs on exports of five critical metals, including tungsten.”

     The largest use of tungsten is as tungsten carbide in cemented carbides, also known as ‘hardmetals.’ They are used as wear-resistant materials by the metalworking, mining, and construction industries. The graph below shows the prices of tungsten to June 2025 at $450 per metric ton, but does not reflect the recent increases above $600 per metric ton.

     According to the USGS, China controls about two-thirds of global tungsten production. The tariff retaliation prices are affecting PDC drill bit costs in the U.S.

     According to Reuters:

“As a result, polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bits, typically priced at $20,000 to $100,000 depending on their size, design and other factors, now cost an additional $3,000 to $25,000, said Yaseer Ismail, a former oilfield services executive and supply chain expert.”

     The DOE noted that they gave a grant to Texas company Melt Technologies, an industrial metals reclamation and recycling firm, to fund a pilot facility to produce tungsten carbide products. The grant actually happened in the last days of the Biden administration.

     Oilfield service companies (OFSs) have indicated that they will have to absorb the tungsten price increases just as they have absorbed the steel cost increases. Combined with anticipated pressure on oil prices, the OFS sector, which includes giants like SLB and Halliburton, is expecting continued drops in profits.  

   

 

References:

 

Analysis-Rising tungsten prices worsen oil drillers' inflation worries. Anushree Mukherjee and Shariq Khan. Reuters. October 8, 2025. Analysis-Rising tungsten prices worsen oil drillers' inflation worries

Tungsten Statistics and Information. National Minerals Information Center. U.S. Geological Survey. Tungsten Statistics and Information | U.S. Geological Survey

Mineral Industry Surveys: Tungsten in June 2025. USGS. Tungsten in June 2025

Cryptocurrency: Winners are the Rich, Like the Trumps, Criminals, and Criminal Hacker States Like North Korea: Losers are the Planet, Air Quality, and Those Who Lose from the Volatility

     Ok, I have never been a fan of ‘crypto.’ It just seems so impractical to me to use so much of our valuable energy capacity to assure financial transaction security. That is an expensive security system, a safe, to protect from theft. But it is not safe from cyber theft at all. I was a bit aghast when I realized that 30% of so-called projected data center power demand growth is not AI data centers but crypto-mining data centers. I sure as hell don’t want my electric bill to climb to help support crypto miners. There are other issues, too, like the high water usage of data centers for cooling and effects on computer chip prices and supply chains. 

     Crypto has long been favored among criminals, organized crime syndicates, and drug cartels as an easy way to launder money and otherwise hide it. It is being successfully used by criminal hacker states like North Korea, which achieved a record $2 billion in crypto theft this year and a running total of $6 billion, which could well be a significant underestimate. Thus, one could say definitively that the current global cryptocurrency system has yielded billions to Kim Jong Un’s sinister regime. Many thefts are thought to be unreported or unknown, so the total values are likely to be higher. It was also revealed recently that North Korean hackers were using fake job offers to infiltrate the cryptocurrency sector and steal digital cash. As someone who has had to look for work in recent years, I know very well that there are many fake jobs out there and scams galore. Some are easy to detect, but others are more sophisticated. It was also reported that these crypto-hacking successes by North Korea were feeding their nuclear weapons ambitions. Kim Jong Un-fair. Way to go, crypto.  

     It’s not just rogue criminal states that are profiting heavily from crypto. Well-connected political grifters, i.e, the Trump family, are also profiting heavily. It was recently reported that the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial profited on paper by $5 billion, despite the coins losing value. In other word’s the Trump family made billions while those who bought coins, because they like Trump, lost value. Of course, the official statement from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is quite believable (massive sarcasm alert): "Neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest." These and many other grifts make Hunter Biden’s financial finagling like a penny in a dump truck full of gold. Of course, these billions the Trump family is making are just a drop in the bucket since they have other crypto ventures and many other business ventures. If you buy enough Trump crypto, you might even get to have dinner with the prez, but that is not influence-peddling. Trump used to not like crypto like me. Instead, he embraced it and got way richer. These days, when the word “trillionaire” is beginning to look like a real possibility, the grotesqueness of the super-wealthy is on full display, and we get to hear constantly from Trump how other countries are ripping us off. It all just nauseates me. It’s hard not to be cynical.

     It is well known that crypto mining uses vast amounts of energy, thus causing air pollution and increasing energy costs for the rest of us, but making the super-wealthy and criminals wealthier. Crypto is well-known to be a risky investment for run-of-the-mill people investing, but a pretty solid bet for the initial coin owners. Some neuroscientists say we have an inherent sense of fairness. I guess, for me, one could say that cryptocurrency and how it is distributed, vulnerable to criminals, and energy-intensive, assault that sense of fairness. As Billy Idol once said, “There is nothing fair in this world.”

 

 

   

References:

 

North Korean Hackers Set Record With $2 Billion Crypto Heist. Namrata Sen. Benzinga. October 8, 2025. North Korean Hackers Set Record With $2 Billion Crypto Heist

New crypto token boosts Trump family's wealth by $5 billion. Aimee Picchi. Edited By Alain Sherter. Money Watch. CBS News. September 2, 2025. New crypto token boosts Trump family's wealth by $5 billion - CBS News

Merger Creates Greenland Energy, Which Plans to Explore Greenland’s Jameson Land Basin for Oil & Gas

      A new merger between Pelican Acquisition Corporation, Greenland Exploration Limited, and March GL Company creates a new company, Greenland Energy Company, which plans to explore the Jameson Land Basin in East Greenland for oil & gas. From 1985 to 1990, ARCO, with partner ENI, spent $275 million on mapping, gravity surveys, magnetic surveys, outcrop and sedimentology studies, and seismic surveys to evaluate the Jameson Land Basin, but never drilled. According to ARCO’s analysis, there is multi-billion-barrel oil potential in the basin, but an oil & gas downturn at the time led to them abandoning the project. 

     According to World Oil:

“March GL has reprocessed ARCO’s 1,800 kilometers of 2D seismic data using modern techniques, identifying more than 50 potential oil and gas targets. Many of these structures demonstrate strong trapping potential, setting the stage for the basin’s first exploratory well. With existing infrastructure and renewed investment, Greenland Energy aims to accelerate drilling and responsibly evaluate the basin’s resource base.”

“Field operations are already advancing. The Greenland Government has approved the mobilization of heavy equipment—including bulldozers, trucks, excavators, and generators—to construct a three-mile road to the first drill site. March GL has secured agreements with Halliburton for drilling services and logistics planning, while a leading shipping company will mobilize a 3,500-meter-capable rig. IPT Well Solutions has also been engaged to oversee project management and technical execution.”

Geology of the Jameson Land Basin

     In December 2018, geologists from Greenland Gas & Oil and JMJ Petroleum published ‘Hydrocarbon potential of the Jameson Land Basin’, which is available from GeoExPro.

     The Jameson Land Basin occurs on the East side of the North Atlantic Rift System, and before rifting, it was connected to similar fields on the west side of the rift system in the North Sea and Barents Sea. These are proven hydrocarbon regions. The Jameson Land Basin is one of the last remaining undrilled North Atlantic basins and is thought to be one of the largest unexplored basins in the world. The basin contains up to 17km of Upper Precambrian to Upper Mesozoic sedimentary rocks. 

     According to the paper:

“The lowermost part of the basin’s sedimentary section is characterised by at least 900m of continental coarse-grained clastic deposits of Devonian, Carboniferous and Lower Permian age. These sediments are unconformably overlain by 900-1800m of shallow marine and continental Upper Permian to Triassic rocks that contain considerable amounts of carbonates, evaporites and red-beds, representing a period of rifting and graben development during the initial stages of separation of Greenland from northern Europe. This event was followed by marine, mainly clastic sedimentation, which continued throughout the Jurassic and into Cretaceous times. The culmination of this was during the Early Tertiary when the entire area was subjected to widespread magmatic activity, associated with rifting and oceanic spreading related to the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, which was accompanied by block faulting, major uplift and erosion of the basin.”

     A palinspastic restoration of the pre-rift rocks is shown below. The connection to existing hydrocarbon productive fields in the Barents and North Sea is established with rocks of similar age, composition, and similar hydrocarbon source rocks, expulsion, migration, charging, trapping, sealing, and preservation indicated.

     The main reservoirs are thought to be Permian through Triassic and Jurassic in age, but deeper Carboniferous (Mississippian and Pennsylvanian) aged rocks are also thought to be prospective. A seismic-based structural model is shown below.

     The authors write:

“We consider the Jameson Land Basin to have significant potential for both oil and gas. A number of sizeable prospects and leads have been identified and mapped, suggesting the potential for multi-billion barrel prospective resource volumes within the current licensed areas, occurring at viable drilling depths. Initial prospect mapping and volumetric calculations identified gross un-risked P50 recoverable resources in the region of 3.5 Bboe with an estimated average Chance of Success of 1:10.”

     The abstract of a 2025 paper in Geological Magazine notes that the basin contains 1.5 km of Middle-Late Triassic sediments that are thought to be prospective. These are syn-rift (deposition and rifting contemporaneous) deposits.

     In April 2025, a deal was reached to drill two 3,500 m exploration holes designed to delineate the sedimentary structure and energy potential of the basin. Halliburton has been contracted for project management and logistics support.

 

     

References:

 

$215 million merger forms Greenland Energy to unlock Arctic drilling potential. World Oil. September 11, 2025. $215 million merger forms Greenland Energy to unlock Arctic drilling potential

Jameson Land Basin. 80 Mile PLC. April 28, 2025. Jameson Land Basin | 80 Mile plc

Hydrocarbon Potential of The Jameson Land Basin. Dr John M Jacques, Greenland Gas & Oil and JMJ Petroleum; Dr Mark Bilsland, Greenland Gas & Oil; and Ruth Hoult, JMJ Petroleum. December 14, 2018. GEOExPro. Hydrocarbon Potential of The Jameson Land Basin - GeoExpro

Jameson Land Basin. March GL. March GL | Jameson Land Basin | Greenland

Middle–Late Triassic evolution of the Jameson Land Basin, East Greenland. Steven D. Andrews, Andrew Morton and Audrey Decou. Geological Magazine. Volume 158. Issue 5. Cambridge University Press. September 29, 2025. Middle–Late Triassic evolution of the Jameson Land Basin, East Greenland | Geological Magazine | Cambridge Core

The Jameson Land Basin. Geology of East Greenland. Geology of East Greenland - Jameson Land basin

The Energy Centrist: Blog by Geoscientist Jason Eleson: Review

      This is an interesting blog by a senior geologist specializing in CCS and decarbonization. I have attended one of Jason’s excellent webinars on CCS geology, engineering, and economics. One thing that makes the blog interesting is that he will take an energy topic, current event, policy, or controversial subject, and try to analyze it and see it from three perspectives: left, right, and center. The blog is very informative and makes a good attempt to see the subjects from each perspective.

     The post on grid-scale batteries is great and digs pretty deep, giving up-to-date, realistic information about the advantages and limitations of batteries, covering costs, safety, environmental impacts, and geopolitics. Eleson gives a format to each post that acts as a comprehensive standard for evaluating the merits of a technology from a wide variety of perspectives. This includes standard headings such as Nutshell, Overview, Arguments For, Centrist Arguments, Arguments Against, Notable Quotables, Watt We Don’t Know, Our Take, Points to Ponder, What Happens Next, and Dig Deeper. It’s really a great way to organize these topics, which often have lots of pros and cons.

     The Energy Centrist is a blog by a smart guy with nuanced and evolved views of the subject matter. It seems to me to be a very good way to organize arguments and set up debates about the subjects. This is a well-thought-out energy analysis with limited bias that deserves more of our attention. I believe that such an approach will help us solve our energy problems rather than endlessly debate them based on partisanship.

     The blog is hosted on Substack for free, with donations accepted. We really need more perspectives and blogs like this. It sure beats all the heavily biased perspectives that are out there.

     Subjects covered so far in the Energy Centrist blog include batteries, natural gas powering data centers, the GHG reporting rollback, the ‘Endangerment Finding’ rollback, Atlantic hurricanes, wind power in the Trump era, small modular nuclear reactors, the attempted revival of coal power, and Chris Wright’s attempt to rewire the DOE.

     In his post about the greenhouse gas reporting rollback. Eleson warns that it is probably not a good idea. I mean, it is hard for scientists to support things like making data unavailable since it is data that supports conclusions. The idea of no longer tracking emissions, no longer collecting data on them, cannot be seen as a good move by most scientists, simply due to the fact that it decreases our knowledge about what is going on:

“Lee Zeldin has made many large, permanent structural changes during his short time at the EPA, but this one could come back to haunt him. Just as loss of wind and solar jobs will be felt by communities that had IRA-backed funding disappear (with little prospect of comparable replacement industries or jobs), so too it may be the proposed GHGRP repeal. Ironically, some of the biggest protests may come from oil and gas companies that are seeking to showcase and quantify their recent GHG reductions from things like efficiency improvements, displacing coal with natural gas as the powerplant fuel of choice and being leaders in the CCS movement. If Mr. Zeldin wants to do repeal GHGRP requirements, we believe he should be more transparent about his motives. It seems as if his primary motivation stems from a lack of concern or belief in climate change, or the negative impacts associated with it. If so, he should lead with that and keep the cost savings as a secondary goal. Other reforms he has undertaken could genuinely improve the growth prospects for many industries in the US…this does not appear to be one of them.”

This blog is highly recommended!

 

   

 

References:

 

Backup Plan or Blind Spot? The Battery Bet Revolutionizing Power: Can advanced batteries make renewable energy dependable—and affordable—for all? The Energy Centrist. Jason Eleson. September 28, 2025. Backup Plan or Blind Spot? The Battery Bet Revolutionizing Power

Turbines, Tech, and Trade-Offs: The electrifying debate over the role of natural gas in powering tomorrow's data centers. The Energy Centrist. Jason Eleson. September 21, 2025. Turbines, Tech, and Trade-Offs - The Energy Centrist

GHG Reporting Rollback: EPA'S $2.4 Billion Emission Omission: Weighing regulatory relief against the cost of losing America’s carbon compass. The Energy Centrist. Jason Eleson. September 13, 2025. GHG Reporting Rollback: EPA'S $2.4 Billion Emission Omission

 

 

Solar is a Doubled-Edged Sword in Pakistan as it Helps Farmers but Raises Power Prices and Accelerates Groundwater Depletion

     Solar-powered irrigation pumps are becoming a successful trend in Pakistan. One old farmer in the Punjab region referred to it as a “societal revolution” not seen since Pakistan built its highway system about four decades ago. Solar generation has grown manyfold in Pakistan, now accounting for nearly one-half of grid power. The boom was triggered by lower solar panel costs from Chinese imports and government subsidies. It has allowed many Pakistani households to go off-grid completely, although many stay grid-tied to take advantage of net metering, where they can sell their excess power back to the grid. The Pakistani power grid is aging, overburdened, and costly. Electricity prices doubled between 2021 and 2024, before the government stepped in to stabilize them.

“Elsewhere in the sane world as in Pakistan, ordinary people have taken matters into their own hands, putting up rooftop solar power on individual homes now equal to one-half of the country’s electric grid. The biggest solar adopters are farmers, using solar to replace diesel fuel to power field generators for water irrigation. As a result, Pakistan used 35% less diesel fuel last year than the year before.”

     An emerging issue is that while wealthy consumers tend to go solar, poorer residents must absorb a higher percentage of the higher power costs. After decades of power shortages, Pakistan now has an excess of power plants, after building several new coal-fired plants since 2010. The solar boom in Pakistan appears to be mainly a rooftop solar and solar irrigation boom. Generous subsidies, some at 60%, are fueling the boom. Apparently, it is simply a better deal than connecting to the grid, which, for rural customers, means additional costs like purchasing transformers.

     Among those connected to the grid, the high power costs force some people to choose between food and power. High temperatures in the country make some kind of cooling, whether via fans or air conditioners, very desirable. Pakistan’s net metering policy, where it pays grid-tied solar customers for their excess power, has led to financial losses due to too much excess power. The situation also shows an inherent flaw of availability in solar subsidization – that the wealthy, those who can afford the upfront costs, will benefit the most. That has definitely been the case in Pakistan as elsewhere. In a sense, it exacerbates inequality by extending opportunities to the wealthy that the poor cannot afford.

     Proposed solutions include promoting and subsidizing battery systems, more government investment in solar, limits on the sizes of solar systems, and grid modernization.

     Another trend among Pakistani farmers is solar-powered tube wells, where solar energy powers the well pump. This is creating more opportunities for farmers. It has resulted in 30% more rice farming and 10% less maize farming from 2023 to 2025. In the drought-prone region of the Punjab, there are dried riverbeds. Growing less water-intensive crops, such as rice, would be better since drops in the groundwater table have been associated with the solar-powered tube well boom. These tube wells do not require permits or registration, so it is unknown how many there are. There must be quite a few since it is expected that the amount of grid electricity consumed by the agricultural sector is expected to drop by 45% from 2023 through 2025. An advisor to Pakistan’s energy minister, Amar Habib, renewables analyst Syed Faizan Ali Shah, and Reuters calculated that 400,000 tube wells were converted from grid power or diesel to solar, and 250,000 new ones were drilled since 2023, suggesting a total of 650,000 tube wells.

     According to Reuters:

“The water table has shrunk below 60 feet - a level designated as critical by the provincial irrigation department - across 6.6% of Punjab as of 2024, according to maps published for internal use by water authorities and seen by Reuters. That marks an increase of some 25% between 2020 and 2024, while the deepest pockets - with water levels beyond 80 feet - more than doubled in size during the same period.”

     Reuters also noted that Pakistan’s energy minister, Awais Leghari, disagreed that solar pumping was depleting groundwater, citing the fact that the same amount of land was under cultivation. However, he did not respond when asked about the growth of rice farming. Low wheat prices have stressed farmers in the region and put pressure on them to grow more profitable crops. Farmers are also banding together to purchase solar panels in a community solar type of approach.

"Farmers share, rent and move panels like tractors," said Lahore-based solar-panel merchant Shahab Qureshi. "They sell land, jewellery, or take loans just to get it. Within five to six months, your return on investment is fulfilled."

     Punjab is piloting about 40 groundwater recharge projects, which have increased in importance since India signaled it would restrict the sharing of Indus River water earlier this year. Farmers are also hoping to increase surface water irrigation projects and utilize older infrastructure, such as old siphon tunnels, to access more water and lessen the load on groundwater resources. What Pakistan does not have is a detailed mapping of water wells and quantitative data on water withdrawals. For sure, groundwater depletion in the region is a problem to be monitored and mitigated.

   

References:

 

How Pakistan’s solar energy boom led to higher power bills for the poor. Rick Noack and Shaiq Hussain. Washington Post. August 24, 2025. How Pakistan’s solar energy boom led to higher power bills for the poor

Clean Solar Outshines Filthy Oil. Robert Hunziker. Z Network. September 2, 2025.  Clean Solar Outshines Filthy Oil

Solar-powered farming is digging Pakistan into a water catastrophe. Ariba Shahid. Reuters. October 1, 2025. Solar-powered farming is digging Pakistan into a water catastrophe

 

Coal Nostalgia by the Trump Administration is Likely to Be Short-Lived Due to Future Political Control and Regulatory Uncertainty

     By short-lived, I mean when the administration encounters loss of political control from Congress and eventually the presidency, which I believe will happen. The current administration is enacting policies and executive orders as if those will never be rolled back. By the time some of the policies are enacted, such as producing more coal, they may be facing rollbacks. While there is certainly some concern about future power reliability due to the loss of baseload power generation sources, including coal, especially in light of increasing projected power demand, it is unlikely to mean a revival in coal production and coal-fired plant upgrading. There will, however, likely be more coal plant retirement delays. I don’t think the power industry believes a coal revival in power production is likely.

     The Trump administration announced recently that it will open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining and provide $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants. The plan for the spending is shown below.

     The call to ‘mine, baby, mine’ echoes the call to drill, baby, drill, which has not resulted in any drilling growth over the last eight and a half months. The so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ lowered federal royalty rates for coal mining from 12.5% to 7%, a significant decrease that officials said will help ensure U.S. coal producers can compete in global markets. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum noted:

“By reducing the royalty rate for coal, increasing coal acres available for leasing and unlocking critical minerals from mine waste, we are strengthening our economy, protecting national security and ensuring that communities from Montana to Alabama benefit from good-paying jobs."

     The DOE also listed all the actions they have initiated to support America's coal industry:

     EPA administrator Lee Zeldin suggested it was heavy-handed regulations from the Biden administration that hurt coal, but that argument has been debunked, including by centrist conservatives such as Benji Backer, who wrote an op-ed to argue that it was market forces that caused coal use to drop.

     The EPA also announced that it will delay seven deadlines related to wastewater pollution from coal-fired power plants. The rule on coal residuals (CR), or coal ash left over from burning the coal, which sits in giant piles of sludge in unlined ponds, will be delayed. Coal ash has been found to pollute local groundwater with toxic heavy metals wherever it is stored in such a way.

     Two coal plants in Ohio, near where I live and likely where my power comes from, have some of the biggest unlined coal ash piles. These are very old plants; one was built in 1954 and one in 1974-75. While they have been modernized to some extent with pollution control equipment, they are surely getting close to the end of their lifetimes. I actually interviewed for a job at the older of the two plants a few years ago, but was not selected. One plant has been associated with several events where black soot was spread all over the immediate region. Local people were very concerned. Eventually, the power company bought out many of the local houses in the town of Cheshire, which is much diminished now. 

     When the second Trump administration began, those plant owners were given new hope for continued operations.

“We just feel like the last administration, all of these regulations were really designed to force the closure of coal plants,” said Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of industry group America’s Power.

     According to an April 2025 AP article by Michael Phillis:

“Environmentalists worry about coal ash and its heavy metals in part because there’s so much of it – more than 100 million tons is produced each year, much of which sits near lakes and rivers in sprawling disposal sites. Some is reused, but a lot is stored near coal plants in coal ash ponds that may not have a lining to keep it from leaching into groundwater.”

“It can be disastrous when companies fail to keep that waste in place. In 2008, a huge dike burst at a Tennessee coal plant. That released more than a billion gallons of coal ash, polluting rivers, toppling homes and shortening the lives of many cleanup workers who spent months exposed to its toxicity.”

“That disaster helped lead to the first federal standards for coal ash disposal in 2015. Those included requirements for companies to line new storage sites, conduct water monitoring and ensure many leaky ponds closed safely, often requiring the material to be moved elsewhere.”

“It contains a lot of important protections, but it didn’t apply to all the coal ash that utilities were managing,” said Nick Torrey, an attorney with the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center.

     The 2600 MW Gavin power plant was sold in late 2024, from one private equity owner to another, which I posted about. It became operational in 1974-1975. According to the Sierra Club, it is the plant they associate with the most deaths from pollution in the country, as well as fifth in CO2 emissions among power plants. It is the largest emitter of PM 2.5 particulate matter from a single source in the U.S. Lucky for me, the air blows the other way. Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently echoed Trump in referring to coal as “beautiful, clean coal.” While its beauty is debatable, it is not clean.

“The EPA estimated Biden’s rules would cost the industry as much as $240 million annually. America’s Power says forcing plants like Gavin to remove coal ash that sits below the water table that they don’t believe is a significant threat to the area’s groundwater and drinking water is extremely costly and can force shutdowns.”

     Matthew Daly of AP writes:

“Coal once provided more than half of U.S. electricity production, but its share dropped to about 15% in 2024, down from about 45% as recently as 2010. Natural gas provides about 43% of U.S. electricity, with the remainder from nuclear energy and renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower.”

“Energy experts say any bump for coal under Trump is likely to be temporary because natural gas is cheaper, and there’s a durable market for renewable energy such as wind and solar power no matter who holds the White House.”

     The notion of using coal to power AI is both nostalgic and dangerous. Projected data center load growth is not just from AI, but nearly one third of it (about 30%) is projected to be to power cryptocurrency. The notion of polluting people to provide transaction security that benefits criminals (crypto is a favorite of money launderers) and stock speculators seems beyond nostalgic to me. It seems almost diabolical in the sense that there are better ways to provide transaction security and better ways to expend energy. We have plenty of natural gas, especially here in the Midwest/Northeast, that can be used for power plants and AI that is cheaper than coal, except during cold snaps when inadequate pipeline capacity and other infrastructure like gas storage fields become temporarily unavailable. We really don’t need coal for power and AI. Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to pursue the denigration of natural gas, which is much cleaner and more often cheaper than coal.  

 

 

    

References:

 

Trump administration opens more land for coal mining, offers $625M to boost coal-fired power plants. Matthew Daly. Associated Press. September 29, 2025. Trump administration opens more land for coal mining, offers $625M to boost coal-fired power plants

Energy Department Announces $625 Million Investment to Reinvigorate and Expand America’s Coal Industry. U.S. Dept, of Energy. September 29, 2025. Energy Department Announces $625 Million Investment to Reinvigorate and Expand America’s Coal Industry | Department of Energy

Burning coal leaves dangerous waste. Trump’s EPA eyes looser rules for handling it. Michael Phillis. Associated Press. April 16, 2025. Burning coal leaves dangerous waste. Trump's EPA eyes looser rules for handling it | AP News