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Gas Prices Are Polluting Our Politics
With the Las Vegas sun bearing down and temperatures heading into triple digits, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the warmup acts at a recent Donald Trump rally, offered the crowd a vision more terrifying than the heat that would send six attendees to the hospital. “If you think gas prices are high now,” Greene said, “just wait until you’re forced to drive an electric vehicle!” Amid the lusty boos that ensued at the mention of legally mandated EV purchases, there must have been at least a few rallygoers saying to themselves, Wait, if we all have to drive...
One of America’s Most Conservative Politicians Is a Crypto Skeptic Now
Load growth is becoming controversial in Texas, where its isolated, uniquely free market electricity system makes a sometimes awkward fit with the state’s distinctive right-wing politics. They crashed together Wednesday, when the state’s conservative Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who a few weeks ago was attending Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York City, expressed skepticism of the state’s bitcoin mining industry and the prospect of more data centers coming to Texas. Responding to “shocking” testimony from the head of ERCOT, which manages about 90% of Texas’s electricity grid, Patrick wrote on X, “We need to take a close look at...
Google’s Plan to Power Data Centers with Geothermal
Current conditions: Extreme flooding has displaced hundreds of people in Chile • Schools and tourist sites are closed across Greece due to dangerously high temperatures • A heat wave is settling over the Midwest and could last through next weekend.THE TOP FIVE1. Tesla shareholders vote on Musk’s pay packageWe’ll know today whether Tesla CEO Elon Musk gets to keep his $56 billion pay package. The compensation deal was originally approved in 2018, but a Delaware court voided it earlier this year, saying it was “deeply flawed” and that shareholders weren’t made fully aware of its details. So the board...
There’s Gold in That There Battery Waste
Every year, millions of tons of sodium sulfate waste are generated throughout the lithium-ion battery supply chain. And although the chemical compound seems relatively innocuous — it looks just like table salt and is not particularly toxic — the sheer amount that’s produced via mining, cathode production, and battery recycling is a problem. Dumping it in rivers or oceans would obviously be disruptive to ecosystems (although that’s generally what happens in China), and with landfills running short on space, there are fewer options there, as well. That is where Aepnus Technology is attempting to come in. The startup emerged...
What 2 Years of High Interest Rates Have Done to Clean Energy
Are interest rates going to go down? The market will have to wait. Following a Tuesday report showing steady consumer prices in May and prices overall only rising 3.3% in the past year, the Federal Reserve held steady on interest rates, releasing a projection Wednesday showing just one rate cut this year. If rates do indeed fall this year (or next, when the Fed is projecting four cuts), that would be a big relief to renewable developers. There’s been an unprecedented flow of money into the sector in the past few years — whether from tax credits from the Inflation Reduction...
The Stephen Miller of Climate Policy
It is my sincere belief that, as with many aspects of governance, thinking about climate policy bores former President Donald Trump. He is not without his hobbyhorses — wind turbines are ugly bird-killers; it’s freezing in New York, so where the hell is global warming? — but on the whole, I tend to agree with the assessment that he basically believes “nothing” on climate change. Trump simply isn’t all that interested. He prefers to let the others do the thinking for him.This isn’t a knock on Trump, per se; part of leading a bureaucracy as big and as complicated...
We Need to Talk About Nitrous Oxide
Current conditions: Temperatures in northern China will top 107 degrees Fahrenheit today • Months-long water shortages have sparked riots in Algeria • Unseasonably cold and wet weather is being blamed for stunted economic growth in the U.K.THE TOP FIVE1. Torrential rains flood southern FloridaMore than 7 million people are under flood advisories in Florida, with a tropical storm stalled over the state at least through Friday. Flooding was reported across the southern part of Florida including Fort Myers, Miami, and even farther north. In Sarasota, just south of Tampa, nearly four inches of rain fell in an hour, a...
How to Fix Electricity Bills in America
Have you looked at your power bill — like, really looked at it? If you’re anything like Rob, you pay whatever number appears at the bottom every month and drop it in the recycling. But how everyone’s power bill is calculated — in wonk terms, the “electricity rate design” — turns out to be surprisingly important and could be a big driver of decarbonization. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk about why power bills matter, how Jesse would design electricity rates if he was king of the world, and how to fix rooftop solar in...
Jennifer Wilcox on Building the First U.S. Carbon Removal Office
In November of 2020, Jennifer Wilcox had just moved to Philadelphia and was preparing to start a new chapter in her career as a tenured “Presidential Distinguished Professor” at the University of Pennsylvania. Then she got the call: Wilcox was asked to join the incoming Biden administration as the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy, a division of the Department of Energy.Wilcox had never even heard of the Office of Fossil Energy and was somewhat uneasy about the title. A chemical engineer by training, Wilcox had dedicated her work to climate solutions. She was widely...
TerraPower Just Broke Ground on Its Next-Gen Nuclear Project
Current conditions: Heavy rains in China are boosting the country’s hydropower output • Late-season frost advisories are in place for parts of Michigan • It will be 80 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy today near the Port of Baltimore, which has officially reopened after 11 weeks of closure. THE TOP FIVE1. Bill Gates’ TerraPower breaks ground on next-gen nuclear project TerraPower, the energy company founded by Bill Gates, broke ground yesterday on a next-generation nuclear power plant in Wyoming that will use an advanced nuclear reactor. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo and Matthew Zeitlin explained, these reactors are smaller and promise to be...
What Trump Could Do to Offshore Wind
Clean energy developers and the bankers who fund them are all pretty confident that a change in power in Washington, should one occur next year, won’t mean the end of the Inflation Reduction Act or the buildout of renewables across the country — except, that is, when it comes to offshore wind. Trump has special contempt for wind energy in all its forms — to him, all wind turbines are bird murderers, but offshore turbines are especially deadly, adding both whales and property values to their list of victims. He has said he will issue an executive order on...
Getting Electrocuted By a Boat Won’t Save You From Being Eaten By a Shark
Former President Trump wants to know: Would you rather be electrocuted or eaten by a shark? On Sunday, during a rally in Las Vegas, the Republican nominee floated the question for what is at least the second time this campaign season (an odd choice, perhaps, given that Nevada is hardly shark territory, and therefore his supporters there are unlikely to have given the question much thought). Trump’s fear of sharks is well documented at this point, and I myself have given that question a fair bit of thought, as well. Personally, I’d choose electrocution because of its merciful speed, but unfortunately...
The Skies Are About to Open Up in Florida
Current conditions: Floods washed away roads in Austria • Thousands of dead fish are littering the shores of a lagoon in drought-stricken Mexico • A heat advisory is in effect for Cupertino, California, where Apple is hosting its Worldwide Developers Conference this week.THE TOP FIVE1. Florida braces for severe rainfallFlorida is in for some very wild weather this week as tropical downpours bring huge amounts of rain and potential flood conditions. About 12 inches of rain is forecast to fall in Southwest Florida starting tomorrow and continuing throughout the week, but AccuWeather says some areas could see an incredible...
Why Is Nobody Investing in Climate Adaptation?
Contrary to the rest of the U.S. tech industry, the market for climate mitigation solutions has boomed of late. Since 2022, U.S. solar energy capacity has grown 51%; sales of electric vehicles rose 146%; and investors have plowed $473 billion into 152 manufacturing clean energy manufacturing projects. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects battery storage capacity will double in 2024. In 2022 alone, private investors threw more than $70 billion at startups working to decarbonize everything from cement production to aviation fuel. And this is all as the cost of solar has dropped 82% over the past decade. Globally,...
May Was a Pretty Good Month for EVs
In the closing days of April, Elon Musk shocked the EV world when he laid off Tesla’s entire 500-person charging division. The company suddenly — and seemingly for reasons of professional pique — gave up on its biggest competitive advantage. At a time when every other automaker was supposed to be moving to Tesla’s best-in-class charging network, Tesla seemed to be abandoning it. The announcement shot the American EV industry through with fear and seemed to cement the broader industry’s malaise. If Tesla was giving up on EVs and becoming an “AI and robotics company,” what chance did anyone else...
The Airstreams of the EV Age
Battery-powered vehicles appear ill-suited to the backcountry — at first blush, at least. Big cities and well-traveled highways are where the plugs are. Far-flung locales, like the kind of places you’d want to drive an RV or tow a trailer, aren’t brimming with DC fast charging stations. And towing extra weight exacts a penalty on the EV’s range.Yet the electric vehicle market is starting to get outdoorsy, providing more ways for people who might have gone electric because they care about the planet to get out there and see more of it. That’s thanks in part to startups and...
Why Biden’s Climate Optimism Is Smart Politics
Campaign strategists and political consultants have a lot of folk theories that guide their work, some of which are even true. One common one is that the more optimistic candidate wins, especially in presidential races: Figures such as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama who painted a bright vision of the future with a smile on their faces triumphed over their more dour opponents. Some political science research backs it up: One study examined candidates’ rhetoric over four decades of campaigns and found “the candidate who was more a pessimistic ruminator lost 9 of 10...
Rivian’s Next-Gen R1 EVs Are Here
Current conditions: China just experienced its warmest spring on record • Some residents in Sydney, Australia, are evacuating after excessive rainfall caused a dam to overflow • Eleven people suffered from heat exhaustion while waiting outside a Trump rally yesterday in Phoenix, Arizona, where temperatures reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit. THE TOP FIVE1. DOE announces plan to speed up fusion research The Department of Energy wants to to “accelerate” the development of commercial fusion energy. It will put $180 million toward funding fusion research from universities, nonprofits, national labs, and also private companies. The department also plans to create a public-private consortium...
Everything Is a Battery
Imagine a battery. Maybe you envision popping one into a fading flashlight or a dead remote controller. Perhaps you consider the little icon on the top of your phone or laptop screen, precariously dipping into the red while you search for a charger. Or you might picture the powerful battery pack inside your electric vehicle, helping to make gas stations obsolete.These minor to major electrochemical marvels are fine, but the opportunity space for energy storage is so, so much larger — and weirder. Water moving between two reservoirs is a classic un-classic battery, but compressed air stored in a...
Clean Energy Investment Is Eclipsing Fossil Fuel Funding
Current conditions: Unseasonably cool temperatures brought snow to parts of Scotland • New South Wales in Australia recorded more than a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours • Multiple tornadoes were reported across Maryland.THE TOP FIVE1. Gov. Hochul pauses NYC congestion pricing ‘indefinitely’New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced yesterday that she will “indefinitely pause” the long-awaited NYC congestion pricing program that was set to start on June 30. The policy would have charged drivers for entering some of the city’s busiest areas, raising $1 billion annually for the transit authority, cutting pollution, and easing traffic congestion. It...
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