Under the Biden administration, the federal government gave out billions of dollars to companies looking to slash the planet-heating emissions from concrete, cement , and asphalt . Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the future of that support for low-carbon mate … | Continue reading
Landfills are a major problem for the climate: They’re the United States’ third-largest source of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide in the short term. Last year, the federal government was poised to start reining in these emissions: In J … | Continue reading
Ground-source heat pumps, which tap into the stable temperatures found hundreds of feet beneath the Earth’s surface, are a super-efficient way to heat and cool homes . They’re also quite expensive to install in existing houses. There’s a pretty straightforward reason: It’s hard t … | Continue reading
The Environmental Protection Agency revoked an essential Clean Air Act permit last month from Atlantic Shores, an offshore wind development slated to be built off the New Jersey coast. One of the main justifications was President Donald Trump’s January executive order calling for … | Continue reading
A coalition of environmental justice advocates is pushing Illinois to become the first Midwest state to adopt California’s Advanced Clean Trucks standards designed to spur a transition to zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles over the next decade. “Air pollution is an equity issue,” … | Continue reading
Want to know why EV chargers can be so hard to connect to crowded urban power grids? Just look to San Francisco’s latest public charging station, opened by startup Revel last week. At first glance, the station, Revel’s first foray outside of its home city of New York, doesn’t see … | Continue reading
On March 6, at the start of the still-simmering trade war between the U.S. and Canada, hydropower generator Hydro‑Québec quietly stopped exporting electricity to New England. At a time of year when Canadian hydropower typically supplies up to a tenth of New England’s power, the r … | Continue reading
When ecologist Anthony Bicknell went looking for fish around the foundations of wind turbines a dozen or so miles off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea, he wasn’t sure what he’d find. But he was ready for something surprising. Around that time, some European lobsters were ca … | Continue reading
This story was originally published by Floodlight and Barn Raiser. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on March 25 it will release previously authorized grant funds to farmers and small rural business owners to build renewable energy projects — but only if they rewrite a … | Continue reading
This analysis and news roundup comes from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. A simple principle has shaped Texas’ electricity system for the last two decades: Developers should build the types of power plants they think will compete best on the st … | Continue reading
See more from Canary Media’s "Chart of the week” column . Two opposing forces are tugging at the global energy transition: the inexorable rise of clean energy and the insatiable demand for electricity. Last year, over 700 gigawatts of clean energy capacity were installed worldwid … | Continue reading
Evanston, Illinois, just passed an ordinance requiring the city’s largest buildings to eliminate all fossil fuels and use 100% renewable electricity by 2050. On March 10, the Chicago suburb joined 14 other state and local governments across the U.S. that have enacted policies to … | Continue reading
Another proposed energy-saving program is on the chopping block in Ohio. Duke Energy Ohio quietly dropped plans late last year to roll out a broad portfolio of programs that would have boosted energy efficiency and encouraged customers to use less electricity during times of peak … | Continue reading
Airplanes. Power plants. Cars and trucks. Their images might be the first to spring to mind when thinking about the challenge posed by the energy transition. But what about plain old buildings? From their structural bones to the energy they constantly consume, buildings account f … | Continue reading
Hyundai Motor Group unveiled plans Monday for a $6 billion steel plant in Louisiana to provide the metal needed for its auto factories in Alabama and Georgia. The announcement came as part of a broader $21 billion investment into U.S. manufacturing facilities including EV factori … | Continue reading
Five years ago, San Francisco–based startup Span debuted a smartphone-controllable electrical panel that allows homeowners to manage their solar panels, backup batteries, EV chargers, HVAC systems, and other major household appliances in real time. It was a high-end product for a … | Continue reading
Clean energy advocates in North Carolina remain bullish about a Duke Energy initiative to help its poorest customers pay their bills and access weatherization programs, even though participation in its first year fell short of predictions. A side deal Duke struck in 2023 to lesse … | Continue reading
The batteries inside electric vehicles can do a lot more than power a car. They can back up homes, schools, and businesses during power outages. They can soak up grid power when it’s plentiful and cheap and send it back when it’s scarce and costly. And they could eventually provi … | Continue reading
Texas legislators have a new plan for their state’s famously competitive energy market, and it looks a lot like the government picking winners and losers. On Wednesday, the Texas Senate passed SB 388 , which would set a target for 50% of new power plant capacity to be “sourced fr … | Continue reading
This analysis and news roundup comes from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. Speaking to fossil fuel executives and other energy leaders at the CERAWeek conference last week, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright made a bold claim. “Everywhere wind a … | Continue reading
A growing chorus of New England state officials — and not just Republicans — is calling for cuts to clean energy programs in an attempt to rein in high electric bills. These efforts are underway everywhere from Maine, where legislators are trying to repeal incentives for rooftop … | Continue reading
See more from Canary Media’s "Chart of the week” column . The U.S. hit a major energy-transition milestone last year: For the first time ever, it produced more electricity from wind and solar than from coal. Over half of U.S. states now get more power from breeze-blown turbines a … | Continue reading
Canary Media’s " Eating the Earth " column explores the connections between the food we eat and the climate we live in. As a journalist who spent three decades reporting for mainstream media outlets — and specifically as a climate journalist who’s spent the last six years researc … | Continue reading
The Trump administration insists that renewables are making energy more expensive and that more fossil-fueled power will reduce utility bills. But those claims are false — and if congressional Republicans succeed in repealing key tax credits supporting the growth of clean energy, … | Continue reading
Indiana legislators are considering multiple bills to promote small modular nuclear reactors, including a controversial provision that would let utilities charge ratepayers for projects that may never be built. Such allowances, referred to as “cost trackers,” are widely used by u … | Continue reading
When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, it ignited an energy crisis that threatened to upend Europe. The continent relied on Russia for much of its gas supply for electricity and heating. Suddenly, European consumers faced soaring fuel prices, which rewarded Russia for the v … | Continue reading
Vermont clean energy advocates are playing defense this year in Montpelier. The Green Mountain State has long been a leader on clean energy, generating nearly all of its electricity from renewable sources since 2015. A shift in state and national politics, however, has left suppo … | Continue reading
It’s become the animating question in the U.S. electricity industry: How can power-hungry data centers get the energy they need? The obvious answers have proven insufficient. Solar and wind power projects face yearslong wait times to interconnect to constrained grids. Moves to si … | Continue reading
A regulatory board’s rejection of a permit for a large solar farm in southwestern Ohio has “essentially rewritten” state law to give local governments veto power over clean energy projects, an attorney for the project’s developer argued last week before the Ohio Supreme Court. Th … | Continue reading
California has big heat-pump dreams. Now, it's got a road map to realize them. Last week, the California Heat Pump Partnership announced the nation’s first statewide blueprint to achieve the state's ambitious goals for deploying heat pumps, a critical tech for decarbonizing build … | Continue reading
This analysis and news roundup comes from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. A wave of new reports and data out this week showed just how good of a year 2024 was for U.S. clean energy, especially solar and batteries. Here are a few highlights: The … | Continue reading
It is easy to overlook the low-rise, cream-colored building on Chicago’s Motor Row , a historic district that was a hub for auto dealers in the early 1900s. Yet the newly purchased headquarters for Bronzeville Community Development Partnership at 2416 S. Michigan Ave. plays both … | Continue reading
See more from Canary Media’s “Chart of the week” column . Republicans are looking to roll back key electric-vehicle incentives passed under the Biden administration. Doing so would kneecap the EV transition for years to come. Under current policies, the number of light-duty EVs s … | Continue reading
One recent day in a warehouse south of downtown Houston, I got a peek at something that just might revolutionize the clean energy transition: a molten orange puddle of instantly liquefied rock. Moments before, an attendant loaded a slug of basalt under a metal-frame structure tha … | Continue reading
The Trump administration has declared it is killing $20 billion in congressionally appropriated funding for solar power, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and other money-saving and carbon-cutting investments for U.S. companies and low-income communities across the country. I … | Continue reading
As Illinois looks to prepare its electric grid for the future, a new voluntary program in the Chicago area promises to lower costs for both customers and the utility system as a whole. ComEd is finalizing plans to roll out time-of-use rates in 2026 following a four-year pilot pro … | Continue reading
Everyone agrees that California’s major utilities are charging too much for electricity. But as in previous years, state lawmakers, regulators, and consumer advocates are at odds about what to do about it. With the state’s three biggest utilities reporting record profits even as … | Continue reading
For most U.S. homes , heat pumps are a no-brainer: They can lower energy bills and eventually pay for themselves all while slashing carbon emissions. But the economics don’t work in favor of heat pumps for every home — and particularly not for those in states that have high elect … | Continue reading
Last May, Florida enacted a law deleting any reference to climate change from most of its state policies, a move Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis described as “restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots.” That hasn’t stopped the S … | Continue reading
As the legal fight continues over whether the Trump administration can ignore climate spending laws passed by Congress, North Carolina advocates are preparing for the next brewing federal threat. A Republican-led budget bill working its way through Congress aims to cut $2 trillio … | Continue reading
As winter turns to spring, Texas is setting new records with its nation-leading clean energy fleet. In just the first week of March, the ERCOT power grid that supplies nearly all of Texas set records for most wind production (28,470 megawatts), most solar production (24,818 megaw … | Continue reading
This analysis and news roundup comes from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. Illinois legislators and clean energy advocates have found themselves in a déjà vu moment: working on a package to accelerate their clean energy transition while federal … | Continue reading
Months of proactive community engagement appeared to be paying off for the developer of the Grange Solar Grazing Center agrivoltaics project in central Ohio. Open Road Renewables knew it faced an uphill battle before the state energy-siting board, whose recent deference to local … | Continue reading
See more from Canary Media’s "Chart of the week” column . Last year was fantastic for battery storage . This year is poised to be even better. The U.S. is set to plug over 18 gigawatts of new utility-scale energy storage capacity into the grid in 2025, up from 2024’s record-setti … | Continue reading
This story was originally published by Grist . Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here . Editor’s note: This story, first published by Grist on Feb. 25, references the Trump administration’s withholding of federal Solar for All grants. The Environmental Protection Agency has s … | Continue reading
Two years after slashing compensation for rooftop-solar owners who send power back to the grid, California policymakers are once again looking for ways to contain high and rising electricity rates — which means the accusation that rooftop solar pushes costs onto other utility cus … | Continue reading
Since its founding back in 2010, Shine Technologies has raised over $200 million to deliver on the potential of generating cheap, abundant energy from fusion. Like the dozens of other startups at work in this field, Shine Technologies has yet to crack the code on fusion, an energ … | Continue reading
This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here . New York state is one step closer to banning fossil fuels in new buildings. On Friday, the State Fire Prevention and Building Code C … | Continue reading