The Trump administration’s two most senior energy officials, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, are both confirmed and in office as of this week, and they have started to lay out their vision for how their agencies will carry out Donald Tr … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Winter storm Garnett could drop up to 9 inches of snow on parts of New England this weekend • A blast of warm air is breaking temperature records in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado • Two people were killed in Tennessee by a possible tornado. If confirmed, this … | Continue reading
There is a lot of uncertainty in the federal government right now. Some functions of critical agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers are paused, or maybe they’re not. Tariffs are on and then off again. Other government agencies are shutting down most of their operations at the … | Continue reading
The Federal Highway Administration issued a letter to state Departments of Transportation on Thursday declaring that states were no longer authorized to spend billions of dollars previously approved for electric vehicle charging networks. The decree pertains to the National Elect … | Continue reading
The political marriage of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the EV mogul and world’s richest man, has significantly changed the outlook for what the Trump administration might mean for energy policy, decarbonization, and the rule of law. Musk has taken over numerous offices r … | Continue reading
Erin Burns has been here before. The executive director of Carbon180, a carbon removal research and policy nonprofit, joined the organization as its first policy director in 2018, partway through Donald Trump’s first term as president. It was under that administration that she he … | Continue reading
This week’s Q&A is with Peter Bonner, senior fellow for the Federation of American Scientists. I reached out to Peter because this week, as I was breaking stories about chaos in renewables permitting, his organization released a report he helped author that details how technology … | Continue reading
Catching Up With the Trumps – You’d be forgiven if you’ve been confused by the news firehose that has been the early days of Trump 2.0. Here’s a quick breakdown of what matters most for developers… DOE Secretary Chris Wright last night issued his first order decrying net-zero but … | Continue reading
1. Dukes County, Massachusetts – The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management canceled a key meeting required for the environmental review of Vineyard Offshore’s expansion into the New York bight, in what appears to be the first time the agency has publicly canceled offshore wind review … | Continue reading
By 2035, BloombergNEF projects that the U.S. will build an additional 221 gigawatts of battery storage, a more than 10-tenfold increase from July of last year. But as intermittent renewables, rising electricity demand, and extreme weather make grid operations increasingly complex … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Back-to-back winter storms are hammering states in the Northeast with ice and snow • Atmospheric rivers have dropped more than 2 feet of rain on parts of Northern California in recent days • Temperatures could soar above 120 degrees Fahrenheit this week in Wes … | Continue reading
The Army Corps of Engineers confirmed that it has paused all permitting for well over 100 actions related to renewable energy projects across the country — information that raises more questions than it answers about how government permitting offices are behaving right now. On Tu … | Continue reading
Current conditions: San Francisco received a record-breaking amount of rain yesterday • Madagascar has been struck by two tropical cyclones in the span of a week • Scientists are warning of an “extreme winter warming event” unfolding at the north pole. THE TOP FIVE 1. Top climate … | Continue reading
The first two weeks of the Trump administration have been chaotic for the clean energy industry, to say the least. Offshore wind permitting is on hold and state governments are canceling plans to sign new contracts. Trump’s federal funding freeze was on, then off-but-actually-sti … | Continue reading
Over the past 30 years, the U.S. automaking industry has transformed how it builds cars and trucks, constructing a continent-sized network of factories, machine shops, and warehouses that some call “Factory North America.” President Trump’s threatened tariffs on Canadian and Mexi … | Continue reading
Elon Musk has put the U.S. Agency for International Development through the woodchipper of his de facto department this week in the name of “efficiency.” The move — which began with a Day One executive order by President Trump demanding a review of all U.S. foreign aid that was s … | Continue reading
Chaos within the Trump administration has all but paralyzed environmental permitting decisions on solar and wind projects in crucial government offices, including sign-offs needed for projects on private lands. According to an internal memo issued by the American Clean Power Asso … | Continue reading
It took the market about a week to catch up to the fact that the Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek had released an open-source AI model that rivaled those from prominent U.S. companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic — and that, most importantly, it had managed to do so … | Continue reading
It took the market about a week to catch up to the fact that the Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek had released an open-source AI model that rivaled those from prominent U.S. companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic — and that, most importantly, it had managed to do so … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A record-breaking 4 feet of snow fell on the Japanese island of Hokkaido • Nearly 6.5 feet of rain has inundated northern Queensland in Australia since Saturday • Cold Arctic air will collide with warm air over central states today, creating dangerous thunders … | Continue reading
Appearing by video connection to the global plutocrats assembled recently at Davos, Donald Trump interrupted a rambling answer to a question about liquefied natural gas to proclaim that he had come up with a solution to the energy demand of artificial intelligence (“I think it wa … | Continue reading
Amidst the chaos surrounding President Trump’s pause on infrastructure and climate spending, another federal funding freeze is going very much under the radar, undermining energy and resilience projects across the U.S. and its territories. Days after Trump took office, acting Ene … | Continue reading
Amidst the chaos surrounding President Trump’s pause on infrastructure and climate spending, another federal funding freeze is going very much under the radar, undermining energy and resilience projects across the U.S. and its territories. Days after Trump took office, acting Ene … | Continue reading
If President Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada — which were set to begin tomorrow morning before the two countries’ leaders negotiated 30-day delays — were to go into effect, they would hit automotive supply chains like a lightning bolt. A single spring inside a f … | Continue reading
U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a month-long pause on across-the-board 25% tariff on Mexican goods imported into the United States that were to take effect on Tuesday. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Sheinbaum had agreed to … | Continue reading
U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a month-long pause on across-the-board 25% tariff on Mexican goods imported into the United States that were to take effect on Tuesday. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Sheinbaum had agreed to … | Continue reading
Current conditions: More than 4 feet of rain have fallen in Australia’s Queensland state since Saturday, triggering a flooding disaster • Parts of Los Angeles are under an air quality alert due to particle pollution • A large storm system will torment millions of Americans across … | Continue reading
On Saturday evening, President Donald Trump signed orders placing 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico, and a lower, 10% tariff on Canadian oil, natural gas, uranium, and other energy sources. Trump also imposed a 10% tariff on all goods imported from China. T … | Continue reading
As President Donald Trump has thrown funding for a broad swath of energy-related federal programs into disarray, Heatmap has been tracking the tangible impacts. On Friday I got the chance to talk with David Funk, founder and president of Zero Emissions Northwest, who had to furlo … | Continue reading
Georgia is arguably the heart of the Inflation Reduction Act economy. The state has been a magnet for manufacturing companies seeking to supply batteries, electric cars, and solar cells in order to capture the law’s generous tax credits for domestically built green technology. Wh … | Continue reading
Donald Trump reemphasized on Thursday that he intends to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico beginning February 1, and while that date is rapidly approaching, the details remain sparse. Although the president has suggested the duties will be sweeping, covering everything from … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Flowers are blooming in Moscow as parts of Russia experience unseasonally warm weather • The UK is being battered by yet another storm after Éowyn and Herminia brought back-to-back flooding events • An atmospheric river is expected to soak Northern California … | Continue reading
The nation’s largest electricity market expects to be delivering a lot more power through the end of the next decade — even more than it expected last year. PJM Interconnection, which covers some or all of 13 states (and Washington, D.C.) between Maryland and Illinois, released i … | Continue reading
This week we’re talking to Carl Fleming, a renewables attorney with McDermott Will & Emory who was an advisor to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo under the Biden administration. We chatted the morning after the Trump administration attempted to freeze large swathes of federal spe … | Continue reading
1. Freeze, don’t move – The Trump administration this week attempted to freeze essentially all discretionary grant programs in the federal government. A list we obtained showed this would halt major energy programs and somehow also involve targeting work on IRA tax credits. Despi … | Continue reading
1. Atlantic County, New Jersey – The Atlantic Shores offshore wind project is on deathwatch. Earlier today, Shell announced it would pull out of its 50-50 joint venture with EDF Renewables to develop the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project off the coast of New Jersey. Atlantic … | Continue reading
Solar energy so far is avoiding the Trump-era challenge posed to wind energy. But it’s unclear the good times will continue, as chaos reigns in Washington and threats loom on the horizon. Last week, Trump issued a 60-day pause on all permits for solar projects on federal lands. M … | Continue reading
Since his re-election, President Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose big tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico. And in recent days, he’s made it clear: Yes, he really means all imports. “We don't need them to make our cars, we make a lot of them. We don't need their lum … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Several wildfires are burning near parts of North Carolina that were devastated by Hurricane Helene • Public transportation in Bangkok is free this week as authorities try to reduce toxic smog • There is ice on the surface of the Potomac River near Reagan Nati … | Continue reading
Vanessa Chan didn’t think she had the right temperament to work in government. After a 13-year stint as a partner at McKinsey, six years as a partner at the angel investment firm Robin Hood Ventures, and four years at the University of Pennsylvania, most recently as professor of … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Storm Herminia moved over Europe, bringing severe flooding to Spain and France • The air quality is low in Mumbai, where a panel is considering banning vehicles powered by gas or diesel • It’s chilly but sunny in Washington, D.C., where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. w … | Continue reading
Among the many, many, many actions President Donald Trump took in his first week to curtail clean energy and climate policy in the U.S., he issued an order freezing all wind farm approvals. It’s anyone’s guess what happens next. On the one hand, we know the president hates wind e … | Continue reading
On February 1 — that is, three days from now — President Donald Trump has promised to apply a tariff of 25% to all U.S. imports from Canada and Mexico, crude oil very much not excepted. Canada has been the largest source of American crude imports for more than 20 years. More than … | Continue reading
A memo issued to federal agencies from the White House budget office on Monday landed like an atom bomb. The Trump administration ordered a pause on the obligation or disbursement of federal financial assistance. In laymen’s terms, that means an immediate freeze on payouts of fed … | Continue reading
A memo issued to federal agencies from the White House budget office on Monday landed like an atom bomb. The Trump administration ordered a pause on the obligation or disbursement of federal financial assistance. In laymen’s terms, that means an immediate freeze on payouts of fed … | Continue reading
The Trump administration has specifically targeted many large federal energy and climate programs in its sweeping freeze and review of grant funding, according to a list obtained by Heatmap News. The list follows the release of a two-page memo dated January 27 and released Monday … | Continue reading
The technology that undergirds decarbonization requires a lot of minerals, and those minerals are often found or processed overseas — really often in China. The Biden administration thought this was a problem, so as it subsidized the domestic use and manufacture of solar panels, … | Continue reading
Back in 2019, the year I bought my Tesla Model 3, Elon Musk was more nuisance than accused neo-Nazi. He released an offbeat autotuned rap song about Harambe the gorilla and was acquitted of defamation charges after calling a rescuer in the Thailand cave incident of being a “pedo … | Continue reading