A new stack of electricity technologies — including solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, and power electronics — seem to be displacing fossil fuels across China and the developing world. Are we watching an irresistible technological revolution happen? Or is something weird … | Continue reading
When John Busbee started his battery technology company in 2010, his strategy was about making just one small part that could be widely used by other manufacturers. He launched Xerion Advanced Battery Corp. at a University of Illinois startup incubator in a bid to commercialize a … | Continue reading
All summer, as the repeal of wind and solar tax credits and the surging power demands of data centers captured the spotlight, a more obscure but equally significant clean energy fight was unfolding in the background. Sustainability executives, academics, and carbon accounting exp … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Super Typhoon Ragasa, the most powerful storm in the world so far this year, made landfall over the northern Philippines as it progresses toward southern China and Taiwan • Hurricane Gabrielle is forecast to rapidly intensify into a major storm while tracking … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Super Typhoon Ragasa, the most powerful storm in the world so far this year, made landfall over the northern Philippines as it progresses toward southern China and Taiwan • Hurricane Gabrielle is forecast to rapidly intensify into a major storm while tracking … | Continue reading
Climate media startup Heatmap News is looking for an ambitious, energetic intern to support its growing newsroom on an ongoing basis.The intern’s duties will be wide and varied. They’ll assist with the nuts and bolts of maintaining a daily news operation, from attending daily sta … | Continue reading
As the United States faces its first significant increase in electricity demand in decades, the grid itself is not only aging, but also straining against the financial, logistical, and legal barriers to adding new supply. It’s enough to make you wonder: What’s the point of an ele … | Continue reading
A federal court has lifted the Trump administration’s order to halt construction on the Revolution Wind farm off the coast of New England. The decision marks the renewables industry’s first major legal victory against a federal war on offshore wind. The Interior Department ordere … | Continue reading
Comprehensive permitting reform remains elusive. In spite of numerous promising attempts — the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, for instance, which delivered only limited improvements, and the failed Manchin-Barrasso bill of last year — the U.S. has repeatedly failed to overhau … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Gabrielle is gaining intensity as it tracks northward near Bermuda • Thunderstorms from Tropical Storm Mario threaten floods in the American Southwest, particularly in areas scarred by wildfire • China is bracing for Typhoon Ragasa, which could … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Gabrielle is gaining intensity as it tracks northward near Bermuda • Thunderstorms from Tropical Storm Mario threaten floods in the American Southwest, particularly in areas scarred by wildfire • China is bracing for Typhoon Ragasa, which could … | Continue reading
After the Los Angeles County wildfires in January, it seemed like the federal government was finally poised to do something about the decades of flawed forestry practices and land management policies that have turned the West into a tinderbox. On January 23, before the L.A. fires … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Gabrielle is intensifying as it travels northwestward through the Atlantic, and may strengthen into a hurricane near Bermuda over the weekend • A trio of tropical storms — Mitag, Ragasa, and Neoguri — is barreling toward East Asia, threatening t … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Gabrielle is intensifying as it travels northwestward through the Atlantic, and may strengthen into a hurricane near Bermuda over the weekend • A trio of tropical storms — Mitag, Ragasa, and Neoguri — is barreling toward East Asia, threatening t … | Continue reading
1. Indianapolis, Indiana – The Sooner state’s top energy official suggested energy developers should sue towns and county regulators over anti-renewable moratoria and restrictive ordinances, according to audio posted online by local politics blog Indy Politics. Per the audio, Ind … | Continue reading
This week’s conversation is with Barbara Kates-Garnick, a professor of practice at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, who before academia served as undersecretary of energy for the state of Massachusetts. I reached out to Kates-Garnick after I reported on the circumstances … | Continue reading
This week’s conversation is with Barbara Kates-Garnick, a professor of practice at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, who before academia served as undersecretary of energy for the state of Massachusetts. I reached out to Kates-Garnick after I reported on the circumstances … | Continue reading
National Republican political leaders are beginning to intervene in local battles over battery storage, taking the side of activists against developers. It’s a worrisome trend for an industry that, until recently, was escaping the culture clashes once reserved only for solar and … | Continue reading
The federal government has become an increasingly unreliable partner to climate tech innovators. Now venture capitalists, nonprofits, and academics are embracing a new plan to survive.On Thursday, an interdisciplinary coalition — including Breakthrough Energy, McKinsey, and Stanf … | Continue reading
For the past five years or so, talk of geothermal energy has largely centered on “next-generation” or “enhanced” technologies, which make it possible to develop geothermal systems in areas without naturally occurring hot water reservoirs. But one geothermal exploration and develo … | Continue reading
Current conditions: In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Gabrielle is on track to intensify into a hurricane by the weekend, but it’s unlikely to affect the U.S. East Coast • Most of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are under “severe” drought warning • Southeastern Nigeria is facing … | Continue reading
Current conditions: In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Gabrielle is on track to intensify into a hurricane by the weekend, but it’s unlikely to affect the U.S. East Coast • Most of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are under “severe” drought warning • Southeastern Nigeria is facing … | Continue reading
It won’t rescue the renewables industry, but at least it’s something.The Federal Reserve announced today that it will cut the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points, bringing it down to between 4% and 4.25%. Fed officials also projected quarter-point rate cuts at the last t … | Continue reading
It won’t rescue the renewables industry, but at least it’s something.The Federal Reserve announced today that it will cut the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points, bringing it down to between 4% and 4.25%. Fed officials also projected quarter-point rate cuts at the last t … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Mario is lashing the southwestern U.S. with rainstorms and potential flash flooding • The drought in the Northeast and the Ohio Valley is worsening, with rain deficits in major cities 15% below average • Tropical Cyclone Mirasol is bringing heav … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Mario is lashing the southwestern U.S. with rainstorms and potential flash flooding • The drought in the Northeast and the Ohio Valley is worsening, with rain deficits in major cities 15% below average • Tropical Cyclone Mirasol is bringing heav … | Continue reading
We live in a new energy era — one in which the inputs and technologies key to clean electricity production are at the heart of international politics. What will that mean for decarbonization? And how should climate tech companies prepare?On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob c … | Continue reading
We cannot hope to halt or even slow dangerous climate change without remaking our energy systems, and we cannot remake our energy systems without environmentally damaging projects like lithium mines.This is the perplexing paradox at the heart of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green … | Continue reading
Elon Musk’s signature talent, the thing that made him the world’s richest man, has long been his ability to make Tesla’s stock price soar. It’s a superpower that manifests through a combination of financial lever-pulling and promises of world-changing innovations to come. For thi … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Drought is worsening in the U.S. Northeast, where cities such as Pittsburgh and Bangor, Maine have recorded 30% less rainfall than average • Temperatures in the Mississippi Valley are soaring into the triple digits, with cities such as Omaha, Nebraska and St. … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Drought is worsening in the U.S. Northeast, where cities such as Pittsburgh and Bangor, Maine have recorded 30% less rainfall than average • Temperatures in the Mississippi Valley are soaring into the triple digits, with cities such as Omaha, Nebraska and St. … | Continue reading
Electricity is getting more expensive. In the past 12 months, electricity prices have increased more than twice as fast as overall inflation — and the most recent government inflation data, released last week, shows prices are continuing to rise.The Trump administration knows tha … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A prolonged heatwave in Mississippi is breaking nearly century-old temperature records and driving the thermometer up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit again this week • A surge of tropical moisture is steaming the West Coast, with temperatures up to 10 degrees higher … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A prolonged heatwave in Mississippi is breaking nearly century-old temperature records and driving the thermometer up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit again this week • A surge of tropical moisture is steaming the West Coast, with temperatures up to 10 degrees higher … | Continue reading
The Trump administration’s bid to end an Environmental Protection Agency program may essentially block any company — even an oil firm — from accessing federal subsidies for capturing carbon or producing hydrogen fuel. On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that … | Continue reading
The 2018 Camp Fire was the deadliest wildfire in California’s history, wiping out 90% of the structures in the mountain town of Paradise and killing at least 85 people in a matter of hours. Investigations afterward found that Paradise’s town planners had ignored warnings of the f … | Continue reading
A solar developer’s defeat in Massachusetts last week reveals just how much stronger project opponents are on the battlefield after the de facto repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act. Last week, solar developer PureSky pulled five projects under development around the western Mas … | Continue reading
1. Wells County, Indiana – One of the nation’s most at-risk solar projects may now be prompting a full on moratorium.Late last week, this county was teed up to potentially advance a new restrictive solar ordinance that would’ve cut off zoning access for large-scale facilities. Th … | Continue reading
This week’s conversation is with Jeff Seidman, a professor at Vassar College and an avid Heatmap News reader. Last week Seidman claimed a personal victory: he successfully led an effort to overturn a moratorium on battery storage development in the town of Poughkeepsie in Hudson … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Warming in the Gulf of Mexico is raising the risk of a tropical storm • Strong winds in the Rocky Mountains and lightning from drier storms are creating conditions for wildfires to spread out West • Heavy rainfall is bringing flash floods to vast swaths of nor … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Warming in the Gulf of Mexico is raising the risk of a tropical storm • Strong winds in the Rocky Mountains and lightning from drier storms are creating conditions for wildfires to spread out West • Heavy rainfall is bringing flash floods to vast swaths of nor … | Continue reading
Renewables projects aren’t always popular. Heatmap regularly reports on local opposition to solar panels on farmland, wind turbines in the ocean, and grid-scale batteries just about anywhere. But data centers may be even less popular, according to a national poll conducted by our … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Cooler air is dropping temperatures on the Pacific Coast and Nevada by as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit • Hurricane Kiko lost intensity and passed north of Hawaii • The volcano Mount Semeru in East Java, Indonesia, is erupting today for the 19th time this week … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The Garnet Fire has scorched nearly 55,000 acres in Sierra National Forest, east of Fresno, California, and now threatens 2,000-year-old sequoia trees • Hurricane Kiko is losing intensity as it reaches Hawaii • Tropical Storm Tapah has made landfall over China … | Continue reading
Electricity is getting more expensive — and the culprit, in much of the country, is the poles and wires. Since the pandemic, utility spending on the “last mile” part of the power grid has surged, and it seems likely to get worse before it gets better.How can we fix it? Well, we c … | Continue reading
In less than a year, the Trump administration has fully transformed U.S. climate and energy policy. The changes have come through the tax code, regulatory repeals, and sweeping but fickle tariffs. Taken together, it means that the worst-case scenario for climate action under Bide … | Continue reading
I resent, as a rule, any news story about a politician’s social media presence. The social media post is simultaneously the lowest form of political communication and, for the journalist, the lowest hanging fruit. It is too easy to sit at your laptop, read tweets, and then write … | Continue reading
I resent, as a rule, any news story about a politician’s social media presence. The social media post is simultaneously the lowest form of political communication and, for the journalist, the lowest hanging fruit. It is too easy to sit at your laptop, read tweets, and then write … | Continue reading