The Trump administration has quietly opened the door to strictly enforcing a migratory bird protection law in a way that could cast a legal cloud over wind farms across the country. As I’ve chronicled for Heatmap, the Interior Department over the past month expanded its ongoing i … | Continue reading
The Trump administration has quietly opened the door to strictly enforcing a migratory bird protection law in a way that could cast a legal cloud over wind farms across the country. As I’ve chronicled for Heatmap, the Interior Department over the past month expanded its ongoing i … | Continue reading
1. Santa Fe County, New Mexico – County commissioners approved the controversial AES Rancho Viejo solar project after months of local debate, which was rendered more intense by battery fire concerns. Opposition to the nearly 100-megawatt solar project in the Santa Fe area was ent … | Continue reading
1. Santa Fe County, New Mexico – County commissioners approved the controversial AES Rancho Viejo solar project after months of local debate, which was rendered more intense by battery fire concerns. Opposition to the nearly 100-megawatt solar project in the Santa Fe area was ent … | Continue reading
This week’s conversation is with Pamela Goodwin, an environmental lawyer with Saul Ewing LLP. I reached out to her to chat about permitting because, well, when is that not on all of our minds these days. I was curious, though, whether Trump’s reforms to National Environmental Pol … | Continue reading
This week’s conversation is with Pamela Goodwin, an environmental lawyer with Saul Ewing LLP. I reached out to her to chat about permitting because, well, when is that not on all of our minds these days. I was curious, though, whether Trump’s reforms to National Environmental Pol … | Continue reading
For U.S. consumers, going solar is usually a major undertaking, involving tens of thousands of dollars, months of logistics, a slew of financing options, and ever-changing incentives. But in Germany, upwards of a million customers — homeowners and renters alike — are simply plugg … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas brace for up to a foot of rain • Tropical Storm Juliette, still located well west of Mexico, is moving northward and bringing rain to parts of Southern California • Heat and dryness are raising the risk of wildfire in South Afric … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas brace for up to a foot of rain • Tropical Storm Juliette, still located well west of Mexico, is moving northward and bringing rain to parts of Southern California • Heat and dryness are raising the risk of wildfire in South Afric … | Continue reading
Here at Heatmap, we write a lot about decarbonization — that is, the process of transitioning the global economy away from fossil fuels and toward long-term sustainable technologies for generating energy. What we don’t usually write about is what those technologies actually do. S … | Continue reading
At the heart of the climate crisis lies a harsh physical reality: Once carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere, it can stay there for hundreds or even thousands of years. Although some carbon does cycle in and out of the air via plants, soils, and the ocean, we are emitting far more … | Continue reading
Was Don Quixote a NIMBY?Miguel de Cervantes’ hero admittedly wasn’t tilting at turbines in 1605, but for some of his contemporary readers in 17th-century Spain, windmills for grinding wheat into flour were viewed as a “dangerous new technology,” author Simon Winchester writes in … | Continue reading
Batteries are the silent workhorses of our technological lives, powering our phones, computers, tablets, and remotes. But their impact goes far beyond our daily screentime — they’re also transforming the electricity grid itself. Grid-scale batteries store excess renewable energy … | Continue reading
Could the answer to our energy demand conundrums lie beneath our feet? And no, I’m not talking about oil, coal, or natural gas. I’m referring to the fundamental stuff of energy itself: heat. Geothermal power is having something of a moment as a non-carbon-emitting source of elect … | Continue reading
Solar power is already the backbone of the energy transition. But while the basic technology has been around for decades, in more recent years, installations have proceeded at a record pace. In the United States, solar capacity has grown at an average annual rate of 28% over the … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A large dust storm blew over the Phoenix area, causing damage and airport delays • Typhoon Kajiki made landfall in central Vietnam, leaving at least four dead in flooding as heavy rains deluged Laos and parts of Thailand • Florida faces increased risk of flood … | Continue reading
Shift Key is off for Labor Day, so we’re running this classic episode.The power grid is straining as new data centers, factories, and electric vehicles come online. For the first time in 15 years, American electricity demand is rising again.The easiest option is to meet that new … | Continue reading
Current conditions: In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Fernand is heading northward toward Bermuda • In the Pacific, Tropic Storm Juliette is active about 520 miles southwest of Baja California, with winds of up to 65 miles per hour • Temperatures are surging past 100 degrees Fahren … | Continue reading
Methane-sniffing satellites have brought unprecedented visibility to “super-emitter” events, when the planet-warming gas gushes into the atmosphere at alarming rates — often from leaky fossil fuel infrastructure. But those plumes contain more than just methane. Scientists are now … | Continue reading
The Danish offshore wind company Orsted was already in trouble. It was looking to raise about half of its market value in new cash because it couldn’t sell stakes in its existing projects. The market hated that idea, and the stock plunged almost 30% following the announcement of … | Continue reading
You can drive your life away and never notice the little arrow on the dashboard — the one next to the fuel canister icon that points out which side of the car the gas cap is on. The arrow is a fun piece of everyday design that has inspired many a know-it-all friend or TikTok. But … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The highest wave measured from Hurricane Erin was 45 feet by a buoy located 150 miles off North Carolina’s Cape Hetteras • Intense rainfall is flooding Rajasthan in India • Wildfires continue raging across North America and southern Europe. THE TOP FIVE 1. Tru … | Continue reading
In the world of climate and energy, “emissions” is often shorthand for carbon dioxide, the most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the world. Similarly, talk of emissions capture and removal usually centers on the growing swath of technologies that either prevent CO2 from e … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Erin’s riptides continue lashing the Atlantic Coast, bringing 15-foot waves to the eastern end of New York’s Long Island • In Colorado, the Derby fire tripled in size to more than 2,600 acres, prompting evacuations in the county north of the ski encl … | Continue reading
This week’s conversation is with Scott Cockerham, a partner with the law firm Latham and Watkins whose expertise I sought to help me best understand the Treasury Department’s recent guidance on the federal solar and wind tax credits. We focused on something you’ve probably been t … | Continue reading
1. Carroll County, Arkansas – The head of an influential national right-wing advocacy group is now targeting a wind project in Arkansas, seeking federal intervention to block something that looked like it would be built. Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, recen … | Continue reading
Donald Trump’s renewables permitting freeze is prompting solar companies to find an escape hatch from Nevada. As I previously reported, the Interior Department has all but halted new approvals for solar and wind projects on federal lands. It was entirely unclear how that would af … | Continue reading
Electricity prices are going up at about twice the rate of inflation. This is becoming a political problem for anyone currently in power, including President Donald Trump. “Any State that has built and relied on WINDMILLS and SOLAR for power are seeing RECORD BREAKING INCREASES I … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Erin is generating waves up to 6 feet high in North Carolina as the storm brings dangerous riptides up the East Coast • Heavy rainfall is causing deadly landslides and flooding in Senegal • Isesaki, northwest of Tokyo, is sweltering in temperatures a … | Continue reading
You’re not imagining things: Electricity prices are surging. Electricity rates, which have increased steadily since the pandemic, are now on a serious upward tear. Over the past 12 months, power prices have increased more than twice as fast as inflation, according to recent gover … | Continue reading
As the cost to charge the Rivian R1S ticked up over $50, then $60, I couldn’t help but recall those “Pain at the Pump” segments from the local news. Perhaps you’ve seen the familiar clips where reporters camp out at the local filling station to interview locals fed up with high g … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Erin is lashing Virginia Beach with winds up to 80 miles per hour, the Mid-Atlantic with light rain, and New York City with deadly riptides • Europe’s wildfires have now burned more land than any blazes in two decades • Catastrophic floods have kille … | Continue reading
So far on Shift Key Summer School we’ve covered how electricity gets made and how it gets sold. But none of that matters without the grid, which is how that electricity gets to you, the consumer. Who actually keeps the grid running? And what decisions did they make an hour ago, a … | Continue reading
For almost as long as utilities have existed, they have attracted suspicion. They enjoy local monopolies over transmission (and, in some places, generation). They charge regulated prices for electricity and make their money through engaging in capital investments with a regulated … | Continue reading
Critical minerals are essential to the world’s most powerful clean energy technologies, from batteries and electric vehicles to power lines, wind turbines, and solar panels. But the vast majority of the U.S. mineral supply comes from countries such as China, putting supply chains … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Erin’s winds strengthen to 160 miles per hour as the Category 4 storm barrels toward the U.S. East Coast • Temperatures have dropped 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the U.S. Northeast as cooler air and storms sweep in • The death toll in Spain’s wildfires r … | Continue reading
It’s not just you: Summers are getting smokier. For the third year in a row, cities like Detroit, Minneapolis, Boston, and New York are experiencing dangerously polluted air for days at a time as smoke drifts into the U.S. from wildfires in Canada. Smoke has traveled to these pla … | Continue reading
Current conditions: After briefly strengthening into a Category 5 storm, Hurricane Erin continues toward Puerto Rico as a Category 4 • China is reeling from flash floods that killed 10 in Inner Mongolia on Sunday • Spain is battling 20 major wildfires as blazes across Europe disp … | Continue reading
Today, the Inflation Reduction Act would have turned three years old — if it hadn’t been buried alive in a big, beautiful grave. While the IRA was a hodgepodge of programs salvaged from President Biden’s far more ambitious Build Back Better agenda, it still represented the bigges … | Continue reading
The Trump administration issued new rules for the wind and solar tax credits on Friday, closing the loop on a question that has been giving developers anxiety since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in early July. For decades, developers have been able to lock in tax credit e … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Erin is still intensifying as it approaches the Caribbean • Rare August rainstorms are deluging the Pacific Northwest with a month’s worth of precipitation in 24 hours, threatening floods • Hong Kong has issued its highest-level “black” rainstor … | Continue reading
1. Lawrence County, Alabama – We now have a rare case of a large solar farm getting federal approval. The Tennessee Valley Authority last week quietly published its record of decision formally approving the 200-megawatt Hillsboro Solar project. The TVA – a quasi-federal independe … | Continue reading
This week’s conversation is with Elizabeth McCarthy of the Breakthrough Institute. Elizabeth was one of several researchers involved in a comprehensive review of a decade of energy project litigation – between 2013 and 2022 – under the National Environment Policy Act. Notably, th … | Continue reading
The Bureau of Land Management says it will be heavily scrutinizing transmission lines if they are expressly necessary to bring solar or wind energy to the power grid. Since the beginning of July, I’ve been reporting out how the Trump administration has all but halted progress for … | Continue reading
Electricity prices are up by over 5% so far this year — more than twice the overall rate of inflation — while utilities have proposed $29 billion worth of rate hikes so far this year, compared to $12 billion last year, according to electricity policy research group PowerLines. At … | Continue reading
Electricity prices are up by over 5% so far this year — more than twice the overall rate of inflation — while utilities have proposed $29 billion worth of rate hikes so far this year, compared to $12 billion last year, according to electricity policy research group PowerLines. At … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The Southeastern U.S. is facing flash floods through the end of Thursday • Temperatures in Fez, Morocco, are forecast to hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit • Wildfires continue to rage across southern Europe, sending what Spain’s environment minister called a “clear w … | Continue reading
President Trump has had it in for electric vehicle charging since day one. His January 20 executive order “Unleashing American Energy” singled out the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program by name, directing the Department of Transportation to pause and revi … | Continue reading