Energy, Utilities & Environment

Council Bluffs – October 13, 2026 -- Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy, LLC (SIRE), a farmer-owned ethanol producer, has acquired GreenAmerica Biofuels Ord LLC, lifting its combined capacity to approximately 230 million gallons of ethanol per year across two plants in Iowa and Nebraska.

The seller is Pilot Travel Centers LLC, which owned GreenAmerica Biofuels Ord LLC as a subsidiary. The target operates an approximately 70 million-gallon-per-year ethanol plant in Ord, Nebraska. The transaction closed October 13, 2026. Financial terms have not been disclosed and remain confidential.

New York – October 13, 2026 -- Egan-Jones Ratings says inexpensive missiles and drones have given Shiite groups leverage over the chokepoints that carry Middle East petroleum exports, with consequences for global trade and credit markets.

Houthis seize Mayun island as drone strike shuts Saudi pipeline

Yemen-based Houthis have taken control of Mayun, a strategic island in the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia's cross-peninsula pipeline was shut after drones launched from Iraq struck it. Saudi Arabia has fought the Houthis for the past decade without success, which Egan-Jones attributes partly to Yemen's mountainous terrain and the fighters' persistence.

Karlskoga – October 13, 2026 -- Cell Impact will deliver most of a SEK 5.3 million flow plate order within two quarters, after a US-based fuel cell and electrolyser OEM asked for a faster delivery rate. Final delivery is expected in April 2027.

Customer brings forward a two-year delivery schedule

Cell Impact announced the follow-up order in June. Deliveries were then scheduled over two years, starting in the third quarter of 2026.

The customer has since asked for a higher delivery rate on the volume already ordered. CEO Daniel Vallin said most of the order will now be manufactured and delivered over the next two quarters.

Material already in stock boosts cash flow impact

The company says the earlier deliveries strengthen its cash flow and have a positive effect on liquidity. The effect is stronger because the material for the flow plates is already in stock.

New York – October 13, 2026 -- The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has mapped more than 500 published hydrogen standards and concluded that deployment is often held back not by missing standards but by difficulty in implementing and applying them. The finding comes from a new report, "Advancing Hydrogen Standards and Codes," and a companion document, the Hydrogen Standards Landscape.

The report summarizes ANSI's hydrogen standards workshop, held June 22-23, 2026, in Washington, DC. It was the latest activity of the Hydrogen Standards Coordination Initiative. Participants came from industry, government, standards development organizations (SDOs), conformity assessment bodies, research institutions and end-user communities.

Cary, N.C. – October 13, 2026 -- Subeca has raised approximately $3M in a Series A-2 round to expand its smart water metering hardware and software for utilities, adding to the $6M Series A it closed in 2024.

Burnt Island Ventures, described in the release as the most active venture investor in the global water industry, led the round. Cycle H2O, a water technology venture fund, joined as a new investor. SUEZ, which led the 2024 Series A, also participated, along with several additional investors.

Subeca is live in 23 communities with a bundled meter-and-software package

Burnt Island General Partner Christine Boyle said the firm sees a billion-dollar opportunity in unmet demand for affordable smart meter infrastructure and AI-native software. Subeca currently offers its bundled smart meter plus software package in 23 communities.

Kingston, Mass. – October 13, 2026 -- Distributed Energy Infrastructure (DEI) has completed the first-ever agrivoltaic cranberry harvests at two Massachusetts wetland solar sites with a combined 5.4 MW of solar capacity and 16.2 MWh of installed storage energy.

The Black Cat Agrivoltaics Project in Plymouth and the Ring Road Agrivoltaics Project in Kingston are owned by developer Greenbacker Renewables and were installed by DEI, an EPC provider for utility-scale solar and storage. DEI describes the harvests as a milestone for extending agrivoltaics into wetland environments.

Two projects pair 5.4 MW of solar with battery storage

The Black Cat project totals 1 MW and includes an energy storage system rated at 500 kVA with 2,700 kWh of installed energy capacity. The Ring Road project totals 4.4 MW and is paired with a 13.5 MWh battery energy storage system.

Vancouver – – October 13, 2026 -- The long-term uranium price closed September at $96.50 per pound, above the $95 peak set in 2007, according to figures published by Cameco. The spot price ended the month at $89.63. Prices utilities agree to pay years in advance now run ahead of spot, which market commentary attributes to buyers planning for tighter supply later in the decade.

Uranium equities fall despite record contract prices

Cameco shares were down 6.9% for the year and 11.6% over the prior month as of early October, according to Yahoo Finance. The VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR) was down 16.4% year to date. Market observers cite utilities' slow pace of new term contracting as one reason the contract price has not yet lifted share prices.

Dammam – October 12, 2026 -- Harbin Electric International (HEI) is delivering the 1,890-megawatt Nairyah 2 combined-cycle power plant in Saudi Arabia, a project tied to the Saudi Vision 2030 initiative, and has released a documentary on the build.

HEI staffs Nairyah 2 with engineers and workers from more than 13 countries

The workforce draws on Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Colleagues from Spain, South Korea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia work on site together. HEI says language gaps and cultural differences were initially major barriers, and that its project team addressed them through open communication and shared goals.

On-site meetings bring together specialists from different backgrounds to develop technical solutions.

Beijing – October 12, 2026 -- The first two generator units of China's Dashixia Water Control Project in the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang, connected to the power grid on September 29 and began generating electricity, marking the project's official operation.

247-meter dam sets height record for its type

The project's concrete-faced sand-gravel dam stands 247 meters high. It is the tallest of its kind among both completed and under-construction dams worldwide. China Energy Engineering Group invested in and built the project.

Completed project to serve 600,000 households and 453,333 hectares of farmland

Once complete, Dashixia will meet the electricity demand of about 600,000 households. It will deliver 3.42 billion cubic meters of ecological water annually to the Tarim River in Xinjiang.

Oslo – October 12, 2026 -- TGS has signed a framework agreement with Galdor Exploration AS, a new exploration company formed on 19 July 2026, to pursue exploration opportunities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) and the wider North Sea using integrated data and artificial intelligence.

Galdor gains access to TGS data and technology across the energy data value chain

Under the collaboration, Galdor Exploration will draw on TGS' integrated data and technology solutions. TGS will also help Galdor implement AI exploration workflows, including TGS' proprietary Seismic Foundation Model.

The source does not disclose financial terms, contract duration or specific license targets.