As the southeastern U.S. recovers from hurricanes Helene and Milton, the destruction the storms have left behind serves to underline the obvious: The need for technologies that support climate change adaptation and resilience is both real and urgent. And while nearly all the mone … | Continue reading
Current conditions: England just had its one of its worst crop harvests ever due to extreme rainfall last winter • Nevada and Arizona could see record-breaking heat today, while freeze warnings are in effect in four northeastern states • The death toll from Hurricane Milton has c … | Continue reading
After the storm, we rebuild. That’s the mantra repeated by residents, businesses and elected officials after any big storm. Hurricane Milton may have avoided the worst case scenario of a direct hit on the Tampa Bay area, but communities south of Tampa experienced heavy flooding j … | Continue reading
In the coming days and weeks, as Floridians and others in storm-ravaged communities clean up from Hurricane Milton, trucks will carry all manner of storm-related detritus — chunks of buildings, fences, furniture, even cars — to the same place all their other waste goes: the local … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Large parts of Pennsylvania are under a frost advisory today and tomorrow • The remnants of Hurricane Kirk killed at least one person in France • A severe solar storm is expected to hit Earth today. THE TOP FIVE 1. Hurricane Milton moves toward Atlantic after … | Continue reading
One of the biggest threats to American offshore wind is a handful of homeowners on the south Jersey shoreline spouting unproven theories about magnetic fields. Within a year of forming, the activist group “Stop The High-Risk Cables” has galvanized local politicians against the tr … | Continue reading
Maybe Sharpiegate wasn’t so funny after all. You’ll recall the micro-controversy from 2019, when then-President Donald Trump said that Hurricane Dorian was headed toward Alabama (which it wasn’t), and officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were pressur … | Continue reading
1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – A new group – Keep Nantucket Wild – is mobilizing opposition to the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project, seeking to capitalize on the recent blade breakage to sever the town of Nantucket’s good neighbor agreement with project developer Avangri … | Continue reading
Transmissions on transmission – The Energy Department last week released a must-read national planning study for transmission to connect renewables to the grid through 2040. The takeaway? We could reduce billions of tonnes of CO2 emissions with interregional transmission and cons … | Continue reading
This week we chatted with Jason Kaminsky, CEO of renewables insurance data firm kWh Analytics. Kaminsky has been laser focused on the real risks of physical damage solar and battery projects face – and the fears host communities feel about them. We talked about how those risks co … | Continue reading
In around 12 hours, Hurricane Milton is set to make landfall within miles of Tampa Bay, a region that is home to more than 5 million people. Once a sleepy retirement community, the area has seen a major development boom in recent years fueled by Millennials and Gen Zers seeking t … | Continue reading
One of the biggest wins the United Auto Workers’ secured in its historic negotiations with the Big Three automakers last year was a commitment from Stellantis to reopen and expand its shuttered factory in Belvidere, Illinois. Now the company is shelving those plans, which include … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Rare rainstorms have flooded parts of the Sahara Desert • Storm Kirk is expected to bring flooding to parts of northern France • Wyoming’s 75,000-acre Elk Fire has been burning for nearly two weeks. THE TOP FIVE 1. Category 5 Hurricane Milton approaches Florid … | Continue reading
How can you fight climate change in your daily life? Last month, Heatmap published our attempt at answering that question: Called Decarbonize Your Life, it’s a series of stories and guides to help you make better, smarter decisions to nudge the energy system away from fossil fuel … | Continue reading
There’s a familiar script when it comes to hurricanes: The high winds snap tree branches and even tree trunks and whip around anything else that’s light enough or not bolted down — including power lines and distribution poles. While this type of damage can lead to large-scale out … | Continue reading
Current conditions: What remains of former Hurricane Kirk could bring heavy rain and dangerous winds to Europe • Wildfires in Bolivia have scorched nearly 19 million football fields worth of land this year • It is 55 degrees Fahrenheit and rainy today at the Alpe du Grand Serre, … | Continue reading
With the markets for electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems on the come-up, energy market analysts predict that the world is hurtling towards a global lithium shortage by the 2030’s. Lithios, a Massachusetts-based startup with a novel method of lithium extraction, i … | Continue reading
The “Meteorologists” Facebook page has 51,000 followers, an iffy grasp of grammar rules, and outsized confidence in the United States’ weather engineering capabilities. “They are Aiming this KILLER Monster Hurricane Right at FLORIDA!” one user said of Hurricane Milton on Sunday m … | Continue reading
Last week, I took a train and two buses to an abandoned tuberculosis sanatorium on Staten Island, where I watched first responders pretend another Hurricane Sandy had just struck New York City. For the sake of the drill, organizers kept many of the details of the fictional scenar … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Rescue teams have arrived in Bosnia after intense rain triggered flooding and landslides that killed at least 18 people • Phoenix marked its 13th straight day of record heat Sunday • There are three storms churning in the Atlantic simultaneously, which has nev … | Continue reading
California just hit a critical climate milestone: On September 1, Pacific Gas and Electric, the biggest utility in the state, raised natural gas rates by close to $6 due to shrinking gas demand. I didn’t say it was a milestone worth celebrating. But experts have long warned that … | Continue reading
Contrary to recent rumor, the U.S. government cannot direct major hurricanes like Helene and Milton toward red states. According to two new rapid attribution studies by World Weather Attribution and Climate Central, however, human actors almost certainly made the storms a lot wor … | Continue reading
Battery swaps used to be the future. To solve the unsolvable problem of long recharging times for electric vehicles, some innovators at the dawn of this EV age imagined roadside stops where drivers would trade their depleted battery for a fully charged one in a matter of minutes, … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Kirk, now a Category 4 storm, could bring life-threatening surf and rip currents to the East Coast this weekend • The New Zealand city of Dunedin is flooded after its rainiest day in more than 100 years • Parts of the U.S. may be able to see the Nort … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Kirk, now a Category 4 storm, could bring life-threatening surf and rip currents to the East Coast this weekend • The New Zealand city of Dunedin is flooded after its rainiest day in more than 100 years • Parts of the U.S. may be able to see the Nort … | Continue reading
The American renewables industry is a global industry. While the Biden administration has devoted three-plus years and billions of dollars to building up wind and solar supply chains in the United States, many of the components of renewable energy generation — whether it’s the ce … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Typhoon Krathon has made landfall in Tawain with 100 mph wind gusts • Hurricane Kirk became a Category 3 storm but is not yet threatening land • The October heat wave baking California has yet to break. THE TOP FIVE 1. Hurricane Helene recovery drains FEMA fun … | Continue reading
This is a special Hurricane Helene edition of Shift Key. Our regular programming will resume next week. Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene made landfall, we are still coming to terms with the scale of its destruction. The storm killed at least 182 people, making it the deadlies … | Continue reading
Hurricane Helene is, by conventional measures, the deadliest hurricane to strike the continental United States since Katrina. At least 182 people have been confirmed killed by the storm, with hundreds of people still unaccounted for. Although all hurricanes are deadly, only a han … | Continue reading
Earlier this week, ProPublica published an investigation revealing that the Heritage Foundation, home of Project 2025, has been flooding the federal government with Freedom of Information Act requests targeted at federal employees, meant to discover which have used words includin … | Continue reading
The Biden administration is trying to open a lot more Western territory to utility-scale solar. But they are facing a conservationist backlash that may be aided by the views of scientists within the federal government. Yesterday, activists pushed back against the environmental re … | Continue reading
1. Coos County, Oregon – We can confirm that opposition and waning industry interest have effectively killed the Beaver State’s first offshore wind lease sale. Late Friday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management postponed an Oct. 15 lease sale for floating offshore wind citing “in … | Continue reading
1. Seasons change, tariffs stay the same – The Biden administration is putting a duty on solar cells from four South Asian countries believed to be pass-throughs for Chinese imports: Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The tariffs range wildly from less than 1% to almost 3 … | Continue reading
This week I spoke with Kasja Hendrickson, director of policy at Carbon180, about why they’re eager to talk about the social concerns involved in direct air capture (DAC) and how conflicts over carbon pipelines are hurting DAC projects too. We talk a lot about renewables here on T … | Continue reading
This week I spoke with Kajsa Hendrickson, director of policy at Carbon180, about why they’re eager to talk about the social concerns involved in direct air capture (DAC) and how conflicts over carbon pipelines are hurting DAC projects too. We talk a lot about renewables here on T … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Thousands of people in Taiwan have been evacuated ahead of Super Typhoon Krathon • Hurricane Kirk could veer toward Ireland • Forecasters are monitoring the warm Gulf of Mexico for signs of another potential storm expected to form later this week. THE TOP FIVE … | Continue reading
In just over a month, America will elect hundreds of thousands of people to state, county, and municipal offices. While those elections might lack the splashiness of the race for the White House or Congress, they could shape how and whether the United States fights climate change … | Continue reading
In just over a month, America will elect hundreds of thousands of people to state, county, and municipal offices. While those elections might lack the splashiness of the race for the White House or Congress, they could shape how and whether the United States fights climate change … | Continue reading
It was always going to be the case that the vice presidential debate would have the most substantive climate exchange of the 2024 election cycle. For one (big) thing: Neither candidate was Donald Trump. For another, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance both have, … | Continue reading
We didn’t have to wait long for climate to come up during tonight’s vice presidential debate between VP hopefuls Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz — the night’s second question was about the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene and fueled by warmer air and waters due to … | Continue reading
The 10 most important clean energy transition projects struggling to get off the ground | Continue reading
Pakistan has long had a severely troubled economy, and a central part of the problem is its electric grid. Much of it was constructed back in the 1960s and has not been maintained or updated regularly. In the 1990s, the government enticed foreign companies (mostly from China, iro … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A wildfire in Greece prompted the evacuation of three villages • Taiwan is bracing for Super Typhoon Krathon • Northern California’s heat wave will peak today, but temperatures will still be higher than normal all week. THE TOP FIVE 1. Treasury: Hydrogen tax c … | Continue reading
The Treasury Department will finalize the long-awaited rules governing the new clean hydrogen tax credit before the end of the year, Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Heatmap in an exclusive interview Monday. It will also publish the final guidance for the advanced manufacturin … | Continue reading
If Hurricane Helene were the only memorable storm to make landfall in the U.S. in 2024, this would still be remembered as an historically tragic season. Since its arrival as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday night in Florida’s Big Bend region, Helene has killed more than 100 p … | Continue reading
Ever since Elon Musk “persuaded” Donald Trump to take it easy on his electric vehicle-bashing, the former president’s EV riffs have gotten pretty boring. Thank goodness, then, that there’s a new boogeyman in town: hydrogen cars. Never mind that there are only about 18,000 hydroge … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Flooding and landslides in Nepal over the weekend killed almost 200 people • Storm John dumped more than three feet of rain on southern Mexico • An autumn heat wave is settling over the California coast. THE TOP FIVE 1. Appalachian states reel from catastrophi … | Continue reading
Deep in Inyo National Forest in the Eastern Sierra Nevada are a couple of bright white domed tents protecting an assemblage of technical equipment and machinery that, admittedly, looks a bit out of place amidst the natural splendor. Surrounding shipping containers boast a large “ … | Continue reading