How much clean energy does it take to make green steel?

When the Biden administration pledged up to $1 billion in awards for two “green steel” projects earlier this year, it signaled an important step in the emerging effort to decarbonize one of the world’s dirtiest industries. Before the announcement, the United States was largely se … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Now Form Energy is using its battery tech to clean up iron and steel

Form Energy launched in 2017 to tackle one of the biggest problems hindering the clean energy transition: how to cheaply store renewable energy for days on end . In developing its iron-air battery, though, the company stumbled on a potential breakthrough for another notorious cli … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

California bill would undo rules making it hard for schools to go solar

California regulators’ hostility to rooftop solar may have hit its political limit, at least when it comes to the impact on public schools. In the past few months, a host of bills seeking to reverse or amend California’s regulatory push against rooftop solar have faltered in the … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Online event: Power demand is soaring. What should utilities do about it?

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@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

El auge de la energía solar en Puerto Rico está en riesgo, advierten sus defensores

Read this article in English Traducción por Maria Virginia Olano En Puerto Rico, los residentes están acudiendo a la energía solar en techos y baterías de respaldo en busca de alternativas más confiables y asequibles a la red eléctrica central. Las estaciones de bomberos, hospita … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Puerto Rico’s rooftop solar boom is at risk, advocates warn

Leer este artículo en español In Puerto Rico, residents are flocking to rooftop solar and backup batteries in search of more reliable, affordable — and cleaner — alternatives to the central power grid. Fire stations, hospitals, and schools continue adding solar-plus-battery syste … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

FERC passed big transmission reforms; now the hard part begins

Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved FERC Order 1920 , a 1,300-page regulation that will transform how the U.S. power grid is planned and paid for. Now comes the hard part — turning those reforms into the thousands of miles of power lines the U.S. needs to … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Can electric woks produce great stir-fry?

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with Eater . The first thing you notice walking up to a dai pai dong , one of Hong Kong’s signature open-air street food stalls, is the smoke. Aromatic plumes billow out from aluminum-covered vent hoods as chefs with decades of ex … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Chart: Global clean energy manufacturing, by the numbers

The overwhelming majority of the world's clean energy technologies — from solar panels to heat pumps — are manufactured in China. The Biden administration, as well as several European countries, are trying to change that. These efforts will likely pay off more with some technolog … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Industrial emissions aren’t falling fast enough to meet US climate goals

The U.S. industrial sector could claim an especially undesirable title in the coming years: It’s set to become the country’s number one source of planet-warming pollution. The designation currently belongs to the U.S. transportation sector. Heavy industry overtook electricity as … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

TVA's local solar program is about to get its biggest project yet

The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public power utility, has yet to fully jump on the solar trend that’s sweeping the nation. But it has allowed communities within its seven-state service territory to buy some solar power for themselves. Now Tennessee-based deve … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Why heat-pump water heaters could soon take off

Canary Media’s Electrified Life column shares real-world tales, tips, and insights to demystify what individuals can do to shift their homes and lives to clean electric power. Planning on replacing your water heater in the next few years? You could find yourself in the midst of a … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Plug Power lands $1.7B DOE loan guarantee to boost hydrogen production

Fuel cell and electrolyzer manufacturer and would-be “green” hydrogen supplier Plug Power has won a conditional commitment for up to a $1.66 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy, providing a boost to its plans to build six large-scale hydrogen production site … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Zombie coal plants could threaten the US energy transition

On the banks of Maryland’s Patapsco River, about 10 miles south of Baltimore, there’s an aging coal plant that pretty much everyone wants to shut down. Local community activists, environmental groups, state officials, even the company that owns the coal-burning facility — they al … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Landmark transmission reform could dramatically speed US energy transition

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday issued a sweeping reform to transmission grid planning, one that proponents say is a major, much-needed win for the effort to transition the country’s power sector away from fossil fuels. FERC’s action was praised by clean energy … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Can California's new fixed rates really help the energy transition?

Skyrocketing electric bills are threatening California’s climate, electrification, and energy equity goals. Last week, state regulators approved a major policy shift meant to address this problem — but left the core driver of the bill increases untouched. In a unanimous decision, … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

How Texas became the hottest grid battery market in the country

On the warm spring night of April 28, Houston had a problem. Denizens of the most populous region in Texas were cranking up air conditioning to beat the early burst of summery heat. Texas’ nation-leading solar fleet had wound down for the night, passing the baton to the nation’s … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Vermont is on the cusp of mandating 100% clean electricity by 2035

Vermont state lawmakers just passed a measure that would require all utilities to provide 100 percent clean energy by 2035 . The bill would put the state on track to be among the first to fully decarbonize, outpaced only by Rhode Island, which requires utilities to provide all-re … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Chart: Renewables generated a record 30% of global electricity in 2023

For the first year ever, renewable energy sources generated 30 percent of the globe’s electricity in 2023 — driven by a decade of consistent, spectacular growth in solar and wind power. This surge in clean generation helped slow the growth of fossil fuels by almost two-thirds ove … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Batteries are taking on gas plants to power California's nights

California spent the last decade building up a massive fleet of batteries to help clean up its electrical grid. This spring, those storage plants passed a major threshold, and now are visibly reshaping the state’s power grid — just as clean energy advocates said they would. Gover … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Need help electrifying your home? This startup has an app for that

Addressing climate change means getting fossil fuels out of about 115 million U.S. homes — ASAP. But right now, that shift is happening at a snail’s pace; by one expert’s estimate , it would take about 200 years to electrify all homes at the current rate. Entrepreneur Grant Gunni … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

World's largest direct air capture plant starts sucking CO2 from the sky

Climeworks has officially switched on the world’s largest “direct air capture” plant, which sits on a lava plateau in southern Iceland. On Wednesday, the Swiss company said it started operations at its Mammoth facility , marking an important milestone in the world’s emerging effo … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Here’s where the Biden admin wants to build new power lines — ASAP

The Biden administration has unveiled its latest effort to expand the country's overburdened power grid: identifying 10 swaths of the country where it plans to wield a never-before-used federal authority to fast-track and fund major transmission grid projects. On Wednesday, the U … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

A $100 million carbon-removal competition enters its final stage

Over 1,000 companies and research teams are now working to remove carbon dioxide from the sky or ocean and permanently lock it away — up from just a handful of ventures a decade ago. As the planet gets warmer and CO 2 levels keep rising , more scientists and entrepreneurs are sea … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Looming power grid rules could make or break the US energy transition

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has spent two years working on what could be the most important nationwide transmission grid reform in decades. Next week , it plans to finally announce its decision — and the implications for the clean energy transition are huge. F … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

The first new US aluminum plant in decades plans big emissions cuts

This story was originally published by Grist . Aluminum is a crucial raw ingredient in the fight against climate change. But to ensure that the transition off fossil fuels is a clean one, the industry needs a serious makeover. A new federally funded “green smelter” could help mak … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Can corn ethanol really help decarbonize US air travel?

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department released a set of highly anticipated and contentious tax-credit guidelines meant to spur production of sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. U.S. airlines burned over 12.4 billion gallons of jet fuel in 2023, nearly all of which were derived f … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

The growing clean energy backlog, in five charts

For the past four years, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been tracking a major threat to the U.S. clean energy transition: the backups and bottlenecks in connecting proposed solar, wind, and battery projects to the electricity … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Chart: One-in-five new cars sold this year will be battery-powered

Despite the steady drumbeat of negative headlines about the electric vehicle market, EVs are breaking sales records across the globe. This year, around 17 million new fully electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) will be sold worldwide, according to new estimates from the Inte … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

CleanCapital’s Zoe Berkery has no time to waste

Canary Media’s Charging Up column chronicles gender diversity and notable career moves in the climatetech sector. Got a person or event you’d like to see us cover or a hot job tip? Let us know! Zoe Berkery: On staking a claim Zoe Berkery is chief operating officer at CleanCapital … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

A year in, New York’s pioneering public power law makes uneven progress

One year ago, New York state passed one of the country’s most ambitious clean energy and climate justice laws. The Build Public Renewables Act authorized the New York Power Authority, a state-owned public power utility, to build and own clean energy projects for the first time. I … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Tesla won the EV charging race. So why’s it gutting its Supercharger team?

Tesla plans to lay off roughly 500 employees in its electric vehicle charging business — a surprising move that industry experts warn could threaten the reliability of the company’s nation-leading network of EV charging sites, complicate its execution of federally funded public c … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Clean energy in rural America gets another big boost of federal funding

The Biden-Harris administration is bringing clean power to America’s less populated – and sometimes overlooked – regions. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy announced $78 million for 19 clean energy projects in rural communities from Alaska to Alabama, for installing everything … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 6 months ago

Frontier bets $58.3M on carbon removal startup Vaulted Deep

Squat metal wellheads rise from a grassy field in central Kansas, surrounded by red steel containers. Years ago, oil and gas companies came here to deposit their liquid waste into the teardrop-shaped salt caverns hundreds of feet below the surface. Now, a company with a wholly di … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Minnesota's biggest solar project will help replace a huge coal plant

One of the largest solar projects in the country is moving closer to completion, and it’s not in a famously sunny state like California , Texas , or even Florida . It’s in Minnesota, on former potato farms near the site of a retiring coal plant. The Sherco solar and energy-storag … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Aza Power wants to swap diesel for ammonia in trucks, tractors, and more

This story was originally published by Energy News Network . A Minnesota company is among a growing number of startups nationwide hoping to help customers replace diesel and natural gas with ammonia in industrial applications. “It’s not as big of a leap as you might think to reto … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Can streetlights unlock big city EV charging? This startup thinks so

It’s hard enough to find street parking in a city — let alone a spot where an electric vehicle can also plug in and charge. But a potential solution rests in the streetlights and lampposts that blanket city sidewalks and are already wired up to the power grid. That grid hookup ma … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Geothermal heat pumps are helping clean up city buildings

Late last year in Austin, Texas, big blue rigs rolled up to a sunbaked parking lot and started boring holes deep into the ground. Bedrock Energy , a geothermal startup, was deploying its novel drilling technology for the first time, near a block of low-slung commercial buildings … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Anatomy of a failed EV startup

Most startups die in darkness. They disappear behind closed doors, while investors privately assess their losses and employees look for new jobs. Any lessons learned tend to stay hidden, and do little to inform successive entrepreneurs. A few months ago, Andrew Krulewitz pulled t … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Chart: Heavy industry is the next big climate problem to tackle

America's industrial sector is on track to become the nation's biggest source of planet-warming emissions by 2035, according to Rhodium Group . While the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy and electric vehicle subsidies are set to drive significant emissions reductions in bot … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

New clean power rules force utilities to take clean energy seriously

On Thursday, the Biden administration issued rules to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and pollution from U.S. power plants, while top officials weighed in with an important message: Clean energy is more than ready to supplant the fossil-fueled power plants the new regulation … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Need help breaking up with fossil fuels? Ask an ‘electric coach’

David Stile knew his air conditioner wasn’t long for this world. It was already 24 years old — ancient for an AC — and he wanted to replace it before it broke. The project would come with hassle and expense, but in it Stile also saw an opportunity. He could switch over to a heat … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Major US solar manufacturers call for strict new solar-panel tariffs

First Solar and Qcells , the two largest solar-panel manufacturers in the U.S., have joined a coalition of domestic suppliers calling for new tariffs on below-cost and state-subsidized panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The coalition, calling itself t … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Solar is about to get a lot more affordable for low-income households

The Biden administration is making a historic $7 billion investment in solar initiatives for low-income families. The funding will help nearly half of U.S. states to create such programs for the first time — and enable the other half to build on existing progress. To celebrate Ea … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

How the Biden admin is trying to boost renewables on public land

The federal Bureau of Land Management has announced a flurry of new rules and plans in recent weeks as it explores how the 245 million acres of public land it oversees can contribute to the Biden administration’s renewable energy and job goals — and as it tries to protect ecosyst … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Tritium, major supplier of EV fast-charging equipment, is insolvent

Tritium, an Australian high-speed EV-charging equipment manufacturer with a large-scale factory in Tennessee, notified regulators on Thursday that it was insolvent, casting uncertainty over whether it can continue to fulfill remaining orders for chargers or service those that its … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Three NY offshore wind projects unravel after GE scraps turbine plans

A month ago, officials in New York celebrated the completion of South Fork Wind, the first utility-scale offshore wind farm to operate in the state — and nationwide. The milestone marked what they hoped would be a fresh start after a year of setbacks and disappointments for the i … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago

Data centers want clean electricity. Can Georgia Power deliver it?

Last week, Georgia Power won regulatory approval to fast-track construction of 1.4 gigawatts of fossil-fueled power plants and to contract for nearly a gigawatt more power from coal- and fossil-gas-fired power plants owned by other utilities. The reason? Fear that skyrocketing po … | Continue reading


@canarymedia.com | 7 months ago