Brad Plumer

If you’re asking me, sure, put it on Google calendar….

full list of canceled awards here....

Energy Dept. Cancels $3.7 Billion for New Technologies to Lower Emissions

DOE cancels $3.7 billion in demonstration projects aimed at cutting emissions — a couple big carbon capture demos, but also cement, glass, iron, chemicals projects.

Calpine and Exxon Mobil were hit, as were startups like Sublime and Brimstone. (Full list in story.) www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/c...

Latest House GOP bill has faster phaseout of IRA clean electricity credits—need to start building wind/solar/battery/geothermal before 60 days after law passes and finish by end 2028, or no credit.

Nuclear gets an exception—a new reactor can get the credit if it starts construction by end 2028.

DOE's super useful guides to commercializing key technologies are back! You can find the collection of "Pathways to Commercial Liftoff" reports here: yardsale.energy/liftoff-reports

Plus check out my amazing graphic design skillz!

A Clean Energy Boom Was Just Starting. Now, a Republican Bill Aims to End It.

Since the IRA passed, companies have made plans to invest over $843 billion in clean energy projects. But just one-third of that has actually been invested, new data shows. Much of the rest is now at risk.

On the new House Republican plan to dismantle the IRA, with @harrystevens.bsky.social

excellent news, congrats!!

oh for sure, i'm just curious what drove the earlier decline

This chart makes it look like Tesla’s decline in Germany has been happening for awhile and not really related to any recent DC stuff, no?

U.S. Embassies Halt Air Quality Monitoring Abroad Since 2008, embassies and other diplomatic posts had been publishing data about local air quality. In many countries, it was the only reliable source of such information.

Not an exaggeration to say this was pound-for-pound the most effective piece of US public diplomacy in China. Twitter was blocked, but U.S. embassy pollution tweets forced Beijing to start publishing its own pollution data, which fed public outrage. Result: millions breathing vastly less toxic air

Layoffs Expand at Federal Agencies, Part of Trump Purge Mass firings have rocked multiple agencies as President Trump and Elon Musk ramp up plans to drastically slash and reshape the federal work force.

More than 300 workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration were told they were fired on Thursday.

Now many of them are getting contacted and told to come back to their jobs: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/u...

New York Times is hiring for two climate reporter jobs — descriptions/how to apply at the links:

1) Climate policy reporter: nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/NYT/de...

2) Climate adaptation reporter: nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/NYT/de...

Text of a February 2nd Department of Justice memo directing all agencies to comply with Friday's federal Court injunction prohibiting any arbitrary suspension of federal grants & assistance due to OMB memo or Trump's Executive Orders. Effective Monday 9am. Applies to all programs.

Update 2/2: Dept of Justice memo directs all agencies to comply with Friday's federal Court injunction prohibiting any arbitrary suspension of federal grants & assistance due to OMB memo or Trump's Executive Orders! Effective Monday 9am. Hat tip @benjaminwittes.bsky.social & @azevin.bsky.social

Trump’s Halt on Climate Spending Freezes Jobs and Stalls Projects

“These are real human beings. We have one woman in her 80s who lives alone, and if she does not get her roof fixed, well, we’re going to have a senior in her late 80s who is homeless."

More on the human cost of this illegal freeze of obligated grants
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/c... 🎁🔗

DeepSeek Is Coming for Sam Altman’s Other Company Too Oklo’s prospects depend on AI’s insatiable need for electricity fueling demand for carbon-free electricity and expensive nuclear projects.

That said I do think @liamdenning.bsky.social makes a bunch of great points here — there's a lot of risk for the nuclear industry in counting on AI-driven load growth to drive the development of small modular reactors. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

I've seen stories about how DeepSeek is upending expectations of rising demand but is that what the market's saying? Maybe things evolve further, but right now most of these stocks are back to… early January levels.

A correction, sure, but doesn't seem like the big picture has hugely changed. No?

that is a very good question

oh for sure, i've definitely had developers tell me they avoid federal lands because of NEPA (among other things).

Fair point, for scale, NREL says about 4% of utility-scale renewable energy capacity is currently on federal land (wind/solar/geothermal). www.nrel.gov/analysis/ren...

Doesn't include proposed projects though. There is a lot of solar potential on federal lands, fwiw.
bsky.app/profile/rose...

oh interesting i'll look/ask

that is what i'm hearing although certainly could be wrong — though i think the 2021 version of this memo was in effect a pause on fossil fuel authorizations no? www.doi.gov/sites/doi.go...

oh yeah, just meant the language is extremely similar except swapping "fossil fuels" with "renewables." obviously very different real world impact!

Possibly relevant... bsky.app/profile/atru...

New Interior memo orders a 60-day pause on new approvals for all renewable energy development on federal land—not just wind, this one also affects solar. www.doi.gov/document-lib...

(Very similar to an early Biden DOI memo ordering a 60-day freeze on new fossil fuel authorizations on public lands.)

DOE and nuclear folks talk a lot about how a lot of lessons were learned from the Vogtle project in Georgia and that the next AP-1000s could be built more efficiently, with fewer problems and overruns.

TBD whether anyone wants to test that out — and what kind of federal backing they'd need.

Exclusive | South Carolina to Reboot Giant Nuclear Project to Meet AI Demand Santee Cooper is working with bankers to solicit interest in V.C. Summer.

Could the big VC Summer nuclear project in South Carolina come back from the dead? Santee Cooper is looking to sell the unfinished plant to buyers who might be interested in building two AP-1000s: www.wsj.com/business/ene...

How much energy does desalinisation use? Is it “absurdly cheap”? A deep-dive on desalinisation.

Desalination for drinking water is surprisingly affordable. Desalination for agriculture probably doesn't make a ton of economic sense apart from some high-value crops.

Really interesting post by @hannahritchie.bsky.social www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/how-much-e...

FID status is one way to break it down. Another is by which projects actually have federal permits, which I track.

Federal permitting status courtesy of permits.performance.gov.

I have 5.8 GW of #offshorewind under construction (surprised some have no FID) + another 8.1 GW w/ all fed permits. /1

oh nice! that's super helpful (and fortunately lines up with the numbers in my story, excluding the two pilots).

Good breakdown from Rystad of what's currently in the U.S. offshore wind pipeline. Projects that have gone through final investment decision (yellow) are probably ok, although that's not 100% certain.

Projects in green still face risk. Projects in blue that don't yet have permits, high risk.