Nick Mailloux, PhD

Within my lifetime, the United States will be powered largely by clean energy. It will be a decades-long project. We’ll enjoy cleaner air and a livable climate for our efforts. Millions will live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

Final EIA-860 is out, and 2025 really did it: 54 GW of new U.S. electric capacity, 96% clean. Solar again carries the offense, and we built more storage in 2025 than the cumulative total through 2023. More and more and more additions... but also record low retirements.

Breaking News: The Trump administration repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being, meaning that the EPA can no longer regulate them. nyti.ms/4rSszQu

The regime is puffing their chest around this but this is basically my feeling, too.

If Bad Bunny can cover the history of Puerto Rico, colonialism, transatlantic slavery, hemispheric consciousness, as well as contemporary life and politics in under 14 minutes, you can do your 15- or 20-minute conference presentation with time to spare.

Map of the eastern United States showing cumulative county-level monetized air quality damages from 2029–2058 resulting from air pollutant emissions from two natural gas–fired power plants recently proposed for construction in southeastern Wisconsin

My colleagues and I quantified the potential air quality and health effects of two natural gas power plants proposed for southeastern Wisconsin.

Over their expected 30-year lifetimes, air quality damages could total $1.38 billion.

Full analysis: www.climatesolutionsforhealth.org/air-quality

Breaking: Washington Post gutting its climate team Clean energy dies in darkness. Courtesy of Jeff Bezos.

I don't say this often but: I'm so proud to be a climate and environment reporter. We cover an issue that is vitally important to humanity and the natural world. 14 of my climate colleagues at the Post were laid off today and I'm devastated.

www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/washington...

Sunrise Wind can proceed, ending Trump’s offshore wind ban — for now A judge cleared New York’s Sunrise Wind to resume construction, completing a string of court victories for wind developers after Trump’s December…

ICYMI: New York’s Sunrise Wind has won its court case and can get back to work. It was the last project held up by Trump’s offshore wind ban.

5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and father return to Minnesota from Texas detention facility Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his dad have returned to Minnesota after being released by ICE, Texas lawmaker says.

BREAKING: Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his dad have returned to Minnesota after being released by ICE, Texas lawmaker says.

“That report was kept secret until it was unveiled as part of Trump administration’s proposal to overturn the Endangerment Finding. The proposal relies extensively on the [Climate Working Group’s] report, citing it 22 times.”

How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are

A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.

The crossover I didn’t know I needed!

Trump’s biggest climate rollback stalls over fears it will lose in court Trump officials have delayed finalizing the repeal of the agency’s “endangerment finding” over concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge.

“Trump officials have delayed finalizing the repeal of a landmark legal opinion key to their effort to eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules because of concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge.”

As we breach 1.5 °C, we must replace temperature limits with clean-energy targets Nature - Actionable goals are needed to guide the world towards what needs to happen most quickly: shifting economies to clean energy sources.

As the world quickly approaches 1.5C, researchers have a call in Nature to rethink the utility of temperature targets – and to potentially replace them with more actionable and precise targets around clean energy:

DeForest announces it won’t move forward with controversial $12B data center The Madison suburb of DeForest, where a $12 billion data center proposal has been in development for months, abruptly announced the data center “is not feasible.”

DeForest, WI, joins the list of towns and villages rejecting data center development. The village won't move forward with plans to annex 1,600 acres from a neighboring town to allow the construction of a data center.

It's unlikely that all of the projects tracked by Global Energy Monitor will actually be built. Many data center developers shop around for power with multiple utilities, which helps to inflate overall demand; simply because a data center project has been announced does not mean that it will eventually be built. Efficiency improvements in both data center construction and in Al training will likely decrease some of the projected demand for energy over the next couple of years. A worldwide shortage of gas turbines also will play a big role in determining what actually gets built on time: Two-thirds of the projects tracked worldwide by the Global Energy Monitor do not yet have turbine manufacturers attached to them.

Good caveats on the scale of the build-out from @mollytaft.com.

www.wired.com/story/data-c...

Figure from the report: U.S. triples gas power plants to meet data center demand Gas-fired capacity announced, in pre-construction and construction phases, in gigawatts (GW) Two bar graphs show gas capacity in 2024 (85 GW total; 4 GW from on-site capacity for data centers, remainder from all other development) and 2025 (252 GW total; 97 GW on-site capacity, remainder all other).

New analysis from @globalenergymon.bsky.social finds that planned U.S. natural gas power capacity additions to meet data center demand with on-site power reached 97 GW in 2025, nearly 40% of all gas capacity in development and a huge jump from 2024.

globalenergymonitor.org/report/betti...

Anxious greens await death of endangerment finding Environmental groups are planning protests to oppose EPA’s upcoming move to repeal the scientific finding.

"A team of career lawyers and technical experts would usually be involved, but only a few attorneys with the Office of General Counsel are known to be working on the rulemaking, the former officials said. It’s unclear if any agency experts on climate science are involved in the process."

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

That’s now nearly 5 GW of offshore wind capacity that continue construction between Vineyard Wind, Revolution Wind, Empire Wind, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind.

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

In the early 1930s the SA was roughing people up, creating chaos in neighborhoods, seeking to terrorize with the occasional killing. By the late 1930s it had been supplanted by the SS, which was much better trained.

Tomorrow’s front page of the Minnesota Star Tribune: Jan. 23, 2026

What’s a Human Life Worth? The E.P.A. Says Zero Dollars. The Environmental Protection Agency has stopped estimating the dollar value of lives saved in the cost-benefit analyses for new pollution rules.

Under President Trump, the EPA has stopped estimating the dollar value of lives saved in the cost-benefit analyses for new pollution rules.

The most Wisconsin of comparisons:

“Republicans’ bill has also drawn the attention of Wisconsin comedian Charlie Berens, who has been outspoken against data center developments in Wisconsin. […] Berens slammed how small the bill was, joking that there are more regulations on cheese curds.”

What did the EPA just do? At Clean Wisconsin, we believe everyone deserves deserves the right to clean water, breathable air, and a healthy community. Learn more about What did the EPA just do?.

I recently sat down with Amy Barrilleaux of Clean Wisconsin to talk about EPA’s proposal to stop valuing the health harms of air pollution, what those health harms are, and the enormous success of the Clean Air Act.

Listen here:

‘Shattered’: US scientists speak out about how Trump policies disrupted their careers Researchers lay bare the human toll of lay-offs, funding cuts and attacks on science one year after the president’s return to the White House.

We're one year in. The speed, scope and severity of what's happening to American science is beyond anything we've seen before. The reliability of the Federal science and technology enterprise and the people within it, has been shattered. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Opinion | Trump EPA ignores health harms of air pollution UW–Madison research shows that eliminating air pollution emissions in the U.S. energy system could prevent more than 50,000 premature deaths each year.

I have an op-ed in @captimes.com on EPA’s proposal to ignore the health harms of air pollution in agency rulemaking.

“By abandoning its longstanding practice of monetizing public health benefits of air pollution reductions, [EPA] is tilting its cost–benefit calculus in favor of polluting industry.”

This move is consistent with EPA’s draft regulatory impact analyses of vehicle greenhouse gas rules, which do not value the benefits of avoided greenhouse gases or air pollution, as @jjbuonocore.bsky.social and I and others detail here:

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

The Trump administration is proposing to value the cost of air pollution deaths at $0.

It’s no wonder that Trump’s EPA would take this step: avoided premature mortality is regularly the largest category of monetized benefits used to justify Clean Air Act regulation.