Today: Heavy oil from the Orinoco Belt is especially energy intensive to refine and extract; ranchers are sequestering carbon beneath their fields and selling credits; AI is being used to find valuable commodities in our trash.

Welcome back: Energy companies eyeing a foray into Venezuelan crude are wading through a mass of uncertainties over oil prices, geopolitics and a potentially chaotic business venture, Clara Hudson writes for Dow Jones Risk Journal. They also have to consider greenhouse gas emissions.

Following the Trump administration’s move to capture Nicolás Maduro, U.S. oil majors are being encouraged to open up shop in Venezuela. But the push to invest in the country’s oil bounty could conflict with pledges to reduce their environmental impact, something oil companies including Exxon and Chevron have said they would do.

Crude from Venezuela is more viscous than most oil, and typically releases more emissions than its lighter counterpart. It is also harder and more resource intensive to extract. Often steam is used to heat it in the earth before removal–only adding to its carbon intensity.

U.S. refineries along the Gulf and West coasts are already primed to refine such heavy oil–and their business would boom with a glut of Venezuelan oil. The light, sweet crude unleashed by the U.S. shale-drilling boom isn’t really the right kind for American refiners, the Journal's Ryan Dezember and Drew An-Pham write. Refineries were designed decades ago to process heavier sour grades of crude from countries including Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. 

Because of this, about 70% of U.S. refining capacity runs most efficiently with heavier crude, according to the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers. About 40% of the oil that runs through American refineries is imported to get the right mix of crudes to create different products, from gasoline and diesel to jet fuel and asphalt.

• Trump wants to drive down oil prices to $50 a barrel. Getting to that price appears doable, though keeping it there comes with risks. (WSJ)
• The 100-year history behind Trump's push for Venezuela's oil wealth (WSJ)
• The prospect of increased U.S. influence over Venezuela’s oil is raising questions about Washington’s potential future role in OPEC. (WSJ)

Tell me what you think: Send me your feedback and suggestions at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com or reply to any newsletter. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up here.

For many ranchers, drought and rising costs mean choosing between selling off pastures or going into the red. Nearly a quarter of American farms were in debt in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

But now some cattle farmers in the U.S. are nurturing a new stream of income they hope will keep them on their land—carbon credits.

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business's Yusuf Khan reports that in Texas, a group of ranchers are working with carbon credit developer Grassroots Carbon, which helps them use regenerative agricultural techniques to sequester carbon beneath their feet. The more they store in their pastures, the more they can earn from selling credits tied to it.

Grassroots estimates that a billion tons of carbon could be stored in soils across the 655 million acres that make up America’s grasslands. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide will need to be removed each year to limit global warming to the Paris goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Environmental concerns and the White House’s push to boost domestic production of raw materials have turned attention to America’s waste stream, which is full of valuable commodities.

Now, recyclers say that artificial intelligence will allow them to efficiently mine trash for treasure, the Journal’s Ryan Dezember writes.

Devices use AI to identify recyclables, flag food-grade material, gauge items’ mass, assess market value and calculate points at which a robotic claw might best clasp each piece.

A big breakthrough has been combining vision recognition systems with pneumatic blocks. Using puffs of air to separate items has proved much faster and more accurate than robotic pickers, said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Arizona-based Republic Services.

• Trump pulls U.S. out of more than 30 U.N. bodies including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (WSJ)
   
• General Motors will incur a $6 billion charge on its electric-vehicle business because of slower demand. (WSJ)
   
• China’s EV sales rose 18% in 2025, reaching 54% of the market, contrasting with slower transitions in the U.S. and Europe. (WSJ)
   
• Lawmakers from both parties want to usher in a new era of nuclear energy, but some Democrats are uneasy. (WSJ)
   
• Lawsuits arising from climate-related disasters in the US are emerging as a rising cost for insurers and policyholders. (FT)
   
• This year will be a formative one for climate tech investors, after a surprising — and at times, unsettled — 2025. (Bloomberg)
   
• Sustainability chiefs share compensation details, budgets and insights in the Trellis State of the Sustainability Profession survey. (Trellis)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send comments to bureau chief Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and reporters Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com and Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at perrycp, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.