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So Your EV Maker Goes Bankrupt. Now What?
When I visited the Electrify Expo in Long Beach, California last month, the traditional automakers had set up tents and booths buzzing with happy representatives ready to show off their electric and electrified vehicles to the media and the public. And then there was Fisker, where one lonely man sat amid a group of Ocean EVs, wondering whether anyone would talk to him. The writing was already on the wall that day. This week, the electric startup filed for its inevitable Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.In March, Fisker slashed the prices of its vehicles in a desperate attempt to stave...
The Climate Jobs Biden Doesn’t Want to Talk About
In 1933, with unemployment running at 25%, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps, an idea with both practical and symbolic significance. It put young men to work (at a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which would be sent to their families); by the time it was shut down during World War II, 3 million volunteers had participated. They planted trees, created trails, fought fires, aided in flood control and soil erosion, and shored up infrastructure around the country. The program helped show the public that a dynamic, aggressive federal government could work to solve problems...
Your Guide to Another Record-Breaking Summer
Last summer was the hottest in two millennia. We won’t get any relief this year.An overwhelming majority of Americans will experience above-average heat this summer, and temperatures in more than half of the contiguous United States are expected to top the historical average by at least 2 degrees Fahrenheit, according to AccuWeather. New York is expected to endure twice as many 90-plus-degree days as last year; Boston could experience up to four times as many.Americans got a taste of what’s to come this week, with a blistering heat wave that began in the Southwest and has scorched the East...
This Climate Justice Policy Has Gotten Weird
It takes about 45 minutes to circumnavigate Odessa, Texas. There’s a highway — 338, known locally as “The Loop” — that encircles the city of 113,000 people in West Texas. Drive along it and you’ll be treated to a nearly unending parade of oil derricks jabbing their way into the underlying Permian Basin, just as they have for roughly the past century. You’d be forgiven for calling Odessa an “energy community.” You’d also be wrong, according to the Federal Government. On June 7, the Department of the Treasury published an updated list of energy communities. Included in that list were...
How Solar Is Helping Keep the Lights On This Summer
Current conditions: China issued a rainstorm warning for its already-sodden southern provinces • Two people were killed in severe storms in Moscow • America’s brutal heat wave will shift into the Mid-Atlantic this weekend. THE TOP FIVE1. Solar to provide one-fifth of global electricity during peak summer hours During the sunniest hours of the longest days of the year, solar power can now provide about 20% of the world’s electricity, according to new estimates from energy think tank Ember. That’s up from 16% last year. Throughout the entire month of June, solar will account for roughly 8.2% of global electricity, up...
Carbon Capture Heads Out to Sea
If the global shipping industry were its own nation, it would be the sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide, belching about a billion tons of the stuff into the atmosphere every year. And not to state the obvious, but the sector isn’t going anywhere. Not only is cargo shipping the means by which 80% of global trade is carried out, but transporting goods via ship is actually much more fuel-efficient than the alternatives. That means that slashing shipping emissions, which account for nearly 3% of the global total, is 100% necessary for a decarbonized future. But unlike most other...
Summertime, and the Weather Is Crazy
Current conditions: A dust storm is headed for New Mexico • Torrential rains flooded the French city of Nantes • Tourists are being turned away in Sicily due to water shortages and extreme heat. THE TOP FIVE1. U.S. plagued by wild weather as summer officially begins The U.S. (along with the rest of the world) is experiencing a bunch of different extreme weather events all at the same time: an early and unusually long heat wave through the Midwest and East Coast, a tropical storm and the potential for 20 inches of rain in Texas, massive wildfires in New Mexico followed...
Texas Is Bracing for the First Named Storm of Hurricane Season
Current conditions: Heat records are falling across the Midwest and Northeast while parts of the Pacific Northwest are seeing late-season snow • Wildfires in New Mexico have burned more than 20,000 acres • Nighttime temperatures remained near 100 degrees Fahrenheit in northern India. THE TOP FIVE1. Tropical storm takes aim at Texas A weather system churning in the Gulf of Mexico could become the first named storm in what is expected to be a very busy hurricane season. Tropical Storm One, as it’s currently known, is “large but disorganized,” but is forecast to coalesce into Tropical Storm Alberto sometime today...
Did Climate Change Do It?
Maybe you’re reading this in a downpour. Perhaps you’re reading it because you have questions about the upcoming hurricane season. Or maybe you’re reading it because you’re one of the 150 million Americans enduring record-breaking temperatures in this week’s heat dome. Whatever the reason, you have a question: Is this climate change? There’s an old maxim — that, like many things, is often dubiously attributed to Mark Twain — that goes something like, “Climate is what you expect and weather is what you get.” Weather refers to the event itself, while climate refers to the trends (averaged over 30 years or...
How China’s EV Industry Got So Big
China’s electric vehicle industry has driven itself to the center of the global conversation. Its automakers produce dozens of affordable, technologically advanced electric vehicles that rival — and often beat — anything coming out of Europe or North America. The United States and the European Union have each levied tariffs on its car exports in the past few months, hoping to avoid a “China shock” to their domestic car industries. Ilaria Mazzocco has watched China’s EV industry grow from a small regional experiment into a planet-reshaping juggernaut. She is now a senior fellow with the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business...
Nuclear Energy Is the One Thing Congress Can Agree On
While climate change policy is typically heavily polarized along party lines, nuclear energy policy is not. The ADVANCE Act, which would reform the nuclear regulatory policy to encourage the development of advanced nuclear reactors, passed the Senate today, by a vote of 88-2, preparing it for an almost certain presidential signature. The bill has been floating around Congress for about a year and is the product of bipartisanship within the relevant committees, a notable departure from increasingly top-down legislating in Washington. The House of Representatives has its own nuclear regulatory bill, the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, which the House overwhelmingly...
Ocean-Based Carbon Removal Is About to Take a Big Step Forward
Current conditions: Tropical storm warnings have been issued for Texas and Mexico • Parts of southwestern France were hit with large hail stones • The temperature trend for June is making climate scientists awfully nervous.THE TOP FIVE1. Lengthy heat wave threatens nearly 80 million AmericansAbout 77 million people are under some kind of heat advisory as a heat wave works its way across the Midwest and Northeast. In most of New England, the heat index is expected to reach or exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. What makes this heat wave especially dangerous is its “striking duration,” Jake Petr, the lead...
Crux Is Getting Some Powerful New Backers
One of the least-noticed changes in the Inflation Reduction Act may be one of the most important.For years, the government has encouraged developers, power utilities, and other companies to build clean energy by offering tax credits. But those tax credits were difficult to transfer to other companies, meaning that complicated financial instruments had to be created to allow them to share in the wealth.The IRA continues to employ tax credits. But for the first time, it allows companies to buy and sell tax credits to each other. A new crop of startups have appeared to help companies trade these...
The Long, Strange Success Story of America’s Biggest Clean Energy Project
Two years ago, John Podesta met with Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. Secretary of Energy. Podesta, a longtime Democratic aide, had just started a new role in the Biden administration, overseeing the Inflation Reduction Act’s implementation, and he was going to meet with Granholm about high-priority clean electricity infrastructure. First on the agenda was a list of transmission projects to ferry electricity from wind and solar farms to cities and suburbs where it would actually be used. “Up pops the list,” Podesta told me later. The first project was a line called SunZia. “My jaw dropped,” he said. “I thought we solved that...
What Happened to Running Tide?
Current conditions: Flooding in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest city, killed at least eight people • A heat advisory remains in effect across many Northeastern states • A “winter” storm could bring up to 15 inches of snow to parts of Montana and Idaho.THE TOP FIVE1. At least 14 pilgrims die from extreme heat during Hajj trip to MeccaAt least 14 Jordanians died over the weekend from exposure to extreme heat during the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Another 17 pilgrims are missing. The holy trip, which all Muslims are encouraged to make during their lifetimes, began Friday...
To Win a Climate Election, Don’t Say ‘Climate’
Earlier this month, an odd little ad began appearing on TVs in Michigan. On first watch, it plays like any other political advertisement you’d see on television this time of year. In it, Michigan governor and Biden surrogate Gretchen Whitmer touts the high-paying electric vehicle manufacturing jobs that the Democratic administration has brought to her state. Watch the spot a few times, though, and it soon becomes clear what it’s missing. Climate change. The 30-second ad by Evergreen Action, an advocacy group linked to Washington Governor Jay Inslee, promotes “electric cars that power our economy and our future,” “training Michigan workers...
The Problem With Climate Finance Targets
Goodhart’s Law tells us that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” The disagreements climate diplomats were having last week highlight why.Last week, climate negotiators sparred in Bonn, Germany, over a New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance. The NCQG, as it’s labeled, is a new target for how much money governments must mobilize to meet global climate investment needs consistent with goals set down in the United Nations’ landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. Reaching a consensus on the NCQG is the biggest item on negotiators’ plates between Bonn and COP29, the annual United...
The Little Weather Balloon Company Taking on Google DeepMind
It’s been a wild few years in the typically tedious world of weather predictions. For decades, forecasts have been improving at a slow and steady pace — the standard metric is that every decade of development leads to a one-day improvement in lead time. So today, our four-day forecasts are about as accurate as a one-day forecast was 30 years ago. Whoop-de-do.Now thanks to advances in (you guessed it) artificial intelligence, things are moving much more rapidly. AI-based weather models from tech giants such as Google DeepMind, Huawei, and Nvidia are now consistently beating the standard physics-based models for...
It’s Not Just Florida That’s Flooded Right Now
Current conditions: Mexico recorded its hottest June day ever, with temperatures reaching 125.4 degrees Fahrenheit • Southern China is bracing for heavy rain that could last through next week • It is warm and sunny in Italy’s Puglia region, where the 50th G7 summit will wrap up tomorrow.THE TOP FIVE1. An update on extreme flooding in Florida – and across the globeMuch of south Florida remains under water as a tropical storm system dumps buckets of rain on the region. The deluge began Tuesday and will continue today with “considerable to locally catastrophic urban flooding,” but should diminish over...
Tesla Is Doomed to Be Interesting
Elon Musk got his money. At a meeting on Thursday, Tesla shareholders voted to re-approve an enormous pay package for Musk, the CEO, worth $45 billion or more depending on Tesla’s fluctuating stock price. The deal had been struck down in January by a judge in Delaware, where the EV company is (for now) incorporated. Musk spent much of the intervening months campaigning on his social network, X, for the gigantic package to be reinstated. The vote puts to bed a variety of rumors and threats surrounding the electric car company — including, most seriously, that Musk would neglect Tesla in...
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