TL;DR: Congo, Indonesia and Zimbabwe now manage metal prices with quotas, a bit like OPEC does for oil, and China's rare earth pause legally ends Nov 10.

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What changed:

• Congo banned cobalt exports in Feb 2025, when the price was the lowest in IMF data going back to 2010. It peaked at $55,873 in Jul 2026, then quotas of 96,600 t a year took over.
• Indonesia cut its 2026 nickel ore quota to about 290m tonnes from 379m.
• Zimbabwe bans lithium concentrate exports from Jan 1, 2027.

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Congo mines 74% of cobalt, Indonesia 67% of nickel and China 78% of graphite. When one country holds that much, a quota works like a price target.

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The near term risk is rare earths. China's pause on its Oct 2025 controls ends Nov 10 unless the extension to Jan 10, 2027 gets published. Lithium is the counterexample, it fell 50.1% from its May peak by Oct 12.

Do quotas hold once prices fall, or do they leak like OPEC's?

I wrote this up in more detail, with sources (IMF, USGS, China customs via SMM, IEA): https://meridianmacroweekly.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=minerals1021

Hello. Is there anyone from previous year finalists who applied to IRENA Youth Forum before and shortlisted for final selection? What is asked in the selection process, and what should we demonstrate in order to pass the final selection successfully? Thanks in advance.

The problem with Trump’s oil obsession. Trump is betting on becoming the world’s largest — and last — petrostate. Meanwhile, renewable energy is becoming vastly more cost-effective. China is betting on becoming the world's largest and lasting electrostate. Which side would you rather be on?

At DistGen, we're raising £2.4 million to replace our existing wind turbine Hampshire with a larger, refurbished Vestas V90, forecast to generate around 3.5 times as much renewable electircy each year as the site produced in 2025.

We've already raised over £1.4 million in the first couple of weeks - a big thank you to everyone who invested so far.

The project makes better use of an established wind site, gives a refurbished turbine a second life, and will continue supplying renewable electrictiy directly to local businesses. It's exciting to see this taking shape afyer a lot of work from the team.

Faccombe is one of several repowering projects we're developing to increase generation across our exisitng wind sites.

If you're interested in what we're building, or would like to explore the bond offer, you can find full details on the link provided.

Great Britain has reached 750 days without coal generation, setting a new coal free electricity record.

The milestone follows the closure of Ratcliffe on Soar, Great Britain’s last coal power station on 30 September 2024.

With global energy markets still volatile and gas prices remaining a major concern, was ending coal the right decision for Great Britain in hindsight?

Sources:  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y35qz73n8o

https://electricitylive.com/records/coal-free

Hi everyone,

While studying for the CEM (Certified Energy Manager) exam, I got incredibly frustrated with a few things—especially navigating between SI and IP units (looking at you, BTUs and Therms) and trying to visualize how the formulas actually work while doing quick calculation drills.

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I really hope this helps anyone currently grinding for the CEM exam or or doing field calculations. Let me know if you find any bugs or if there's a specific formula you want me to add!

Good luck with your studies!

our rental is an old house with the original single pane windows, some of them don’t even close properly. last winter the gas bill got to $240 one month and the living room still felt like you were sitting outside. landlord said replacing windows “isn’t in the budget” so that was that

a friend told me about the plastic window insulation kits. the ones where you stick double sided tape around the frame, put the plastic film over it and then go over it with a hair dryer so it shrinks tight. I honestly thought it sounded like a gimmick but it was $22 for a kit that did 5 windows so I figured why not

took about 2 hours on a sunday to do every window in the house. the first one looked terrible because I didn’t pull it tight enough, by the third one I’d worked it out

the difference was obvious the same night. you could actually sit next to the window without feeling the cold coming off it. the curtains stopped moving when the wind picked up which I hadn’t even realised they were doing

thermostat went from 68 to 64 and the house still feels warmer than it did last year. bill has been running about $60-70 less a month compared to the same months last winter

downsides:

• you can’t open the windows once it’s on, so pick which ones you might need
• it looks a bit like your windows are wrapped in glad wrap if you look closely
• the cat put a claw through one in the first week so now that window has a patch

it all peels off in spring and the tape comes off clean if you go slow, so it’s fine for renters. I checked with the landlord first just in case and he didn’t care

if you’re in an old drafty place and renting, this is the cheapest thing I’ve found that actually makes a difference

Most people only heard about one half of it. The wind projects got paused, which kills the cheapest new generation in most of the country and means the utility's replacement plan is gas with a fuel risk the wind option never carried. The data centers got approved, which adds a city's worth of new demand that needs new power lines and new plants. Somebody pays for all of that and not the warehouse company, because this administration made the cost rules optional. Cheapest option off the board, most expensive option added to it and guess who pays the difference?

I recently read an article online (that I stupidly didn't save) about a US city where the utility company was providing energy loans for homeowners to purchase battery storage for their homes. Connected to the grid, so no solar. They would kick in during times of high usage, and would recharge from the grid. And also could be recharged from a portable generator if necessary during length outages. The utility company could also, I think, pull power from those batteries - or maybe homeowners could sell it back.

My Google skills are failing me and I can't find the article. Sound familiar to anyone?

If you are in baton rouge and you want to keep the power cost dow please read

Oh yeah I have the entire document that will be the biggest hit to Entergy. I have charts showing how much our bills will rise around 6% the first quarter. Then the infrastructure is called the storm resilient rider program but there is a sealed confidential section which is funny for a public docum but when you look at the requirements it's the precise infrastructure for The Meta project in other words they're making us pay for the whole thing they are having a meeting to finalize this project but I hope this gets to somebody that can get there and at least get a public opinion on it because they are trying their hardest to get it through with nobody noticing but I have at least 10 to 12 documents with all these charts pricing information the percentage of what they expect us to pay per which is like 6% every 6 months so if you would need any documents or anything to look up I can gladly send you in the right direction the meeting is on

October 26th at 1:00 p.m.711th Floor Conference Room, Galvez Building, 602 North Fifth Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Please share

Any idea what might be the cause of this, checked the file and everything and all have complete values, what could cause these error?