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Five people to watch on energy, environmental issues in the new year

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Friday, December 27, 2024

Energy and climate are expected to be divisive issues in 2025 as President-elect Trump, backed by GOP majorities in both the House and Senate, looks to expand U.S. energy development while congressional Democrats worried about the effect on global warming seek to stymie him. Here are five figures likely to make headlines on energy and environmental issues in 2025. Energy czar and Interior secretary nominee Doug Burgum As chair of a new National Energy Council, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) is set to broadly coordinate the incoming administration's energy agenda. If confirmed to lead the Interior Department, he also likely would oversee an increase in oil and gas drilling on federal lands, marking a sharp contrast to the department's outgoing secretary, Deb Haaland, who has been a major ally within the Biden administration to environmentalists.  North Dakota is the No. 3 state nationwide for crude oil production. He was a high-profile Trump surrogate during the 2024 campaign and reportedly was a vice presidential contender. One of the president-elect’s less controversial nominees, he is unlikely to see obstacles to his confirmation. Energy secretary nominee Chris Wright Chris Wright, the CEO of fracking giant Liberty Energy, similarly is likely to carry out policy that echoes Trump’s support of the fossil fuel industry if confirmed to lead the Energy Department. President Biden's Energy Department, under Secretary Jennifer Granholm, has heavily promoted renewable energy development and expansion of electric vehicles, two frequent targets of Trump's. The department is likely to abandon those efforts under Wright.  However, many of the renewable-energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature legislative package, have found unlikely defenders among the House GOP caucus, suggesting Wright may face some resistance if the administration seeks to unwind them as expected.  Wright also appears unlikely to face meaningful opposition to his confirmation in the incoming Republican-majority Senate. Environmental Protection Agency administrator nominee Lee Zeldin Lee Zeldin distinguished himself during Trump's first term as one of the president's most loyal defenders in Congress, serving on his defense during his first impeachment trial, and he is likely to take a similar approach to backing Trump's agenda as part of his incoming administration. This likely would include rolling back many of his predecessor Michael Regan’s policies, like the first Trump EPA did with Obama-era rules. Zeldin, who represented New York’s 1st Congressional District in the House before resigning to run for governor in 2022, did not have an extensive environmental profile before Trump nominated him to lead the EPA, but he also has prompted little controversy ahead of his confirmation. Sen.-elect John Curtis Sen.-elect John Curtis (R-Utah), who easily won the Senate race in deep-red Utah to succeed Sen. Mitt Romney (R) after beating a Trump-backed candidate in the primaries, appears poised to play a key role in any potential bipartisan work on climate issues in the 119th Congress. In the House, where he has represented Utah's 3rd District since 2017, Curtis was the founder of the Conservative Climate Caucus, a group of Republican lawmakers who acknowledge the threat of climate change but favor free-market solutions.  He also co-sponsored a bipartisan bill in the lower chamber with Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) that called for a federal study of the effects of an import tax based on carbon intensity. That bill was similar to a proposal from one of Curtis’s new colleagues, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), suggesting Curtis could be a notable player on climate in the next Congress, though the Republican majorities likely will be more focused on promoting energy development than efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Rep. Jared Huffman As Democrats figure out their next steps after 2024’s electoral losses, many of the party’s younger leaders have called for leadership shakeups in Congress, and several have mounted challenges to more-senior committee leaders.  One of the first Democrats to announce such a challenge was Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who made a bid for leadership of the House Natural Resources Committee against incumbent ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). Grijalva, who is retiring in 2027, initially said he would seek another term, but he withdrew shortly after and endorsed Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.). Stansbury withdrew amid overwhelming support for Huffman, who was formally voted ranking member this week.  In the role, Huffman will put the effectiveness of the leadership shakeups to the test, particularly on issues such as environmental justice and renewable energy, where Trump is likely to seek to undo much of the party’s work of the past four years.

Energy and climate are expected to be divisive issues in 2025 as President-elect Trump, backed by GOP majorities in both the House and Senate, looks to expand U.S. energy development while congressional Democrats worried about the effect on global warming seek to stymie him. Here are five figures likely to make headlines on energy and environmental issues...

Energy and climate are expected to be divisive issues in 2025 as President-elect Trump, backed by GOP majorities in both the House and Senate, looks to expand U.S. energy development while congressional Democrats worried about the effect on global warming seek to stymie him.

Here are five figures likely to make headlines on energy and environmental issues in 2025.

Energy czar and Interior secretary nominee Doug Burgum

As chair of a new National Energy Council, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) is set to broadly coordinate the incoming administration's energy agenda. If confirmed to lead the Interior Department, he also likely would oversee an increase in oil and gas drilling on federal lands, marking a sharp contrast to the department's outgoing secretary, Deb Haaland, who has been a major ally within the Biden administration to environmentalists. 

North Dakota is the No. 3 state nationwide for crude oil production. He was a high-profile Trump surrogate during the 2024 campaign and reportedly was a vice presidential contender. One of the president-elect’s less controversial nominees, he is unlikely to see obstacles to his confirmation.

Energy secretary nominee Chris Wright

Chris Wright, the CEO of fracking giant Liberty Energy, similarly is likely to carry out policy that echoes Trump’s support of the fossil fuel industry if confirmed to lead the Energy Department.

President Biden's Energy Department, under Secretary Jennifer Granholm, has heavily promoted renewable energy development and expansion of electric vehicles, two frequent targets of Trump's. The department is likely to abandon those efforts under Wright. 

However, many of the renewable-energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature legislative package, have found unlikely defenders among the House GOP caucus, suggesting Wright may face some resistance if the administration seeks to unwind them as expected. 

Wright also appears unlikely to face meaningful opposition to his confirmation in the incoming Republican-majority Senate.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator nominee Lee Zeldin

Lee Zeldin distinguished himself during Trump's first term as one of the president's most loyal defenders in Congress, serving on his defense during his first impeachment trial, and he is likely to take a similar approach to backing Trump's agenda as part of his incoming administration.

This likely would include rolling back many of his predecessor Michael Regan’s policies, like the first Trump EPA did with Obama-era rules.

Zeldin, who represented New York’s 1st Congressional District in the House before resigning to run for governor in 2022, did not have an extensive environmental profile before Trump nominated him to lead the EPA, but he also has prompted little controversy ahead of his confirmation.

Sen.-elect John Curtis

Sen.-elect John Curtis (R-Utah), who easily won the Senate race in deep-red Utah to succeed Sen. Mitt Romney (R) after beating a Trump-backed candidate in the primaries, appears poised to play a key role in any potential bipartisan work on climate issues in the 119th Congress.

In the House, where he has represented Utah's 3rd District since 2017, Curtis was the founder of the Conservative Climate Caucus, a group of Republican lawmakers who acknowledge the threat of climate change but favor free-market solutions. 

He also co-sponsored a bipartisan bill in the lower chamber with Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) that called for a federal study of the effects of an import tax based on carbon intensity. That bill was similar to a proposal from one of Curtis’s new colleagues, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), suggesting Curtis could be a notable player on climate in the next Congress, though the Republican majorities likely will be more focused on promoting energy development than efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Rep. Jared Huffman

As Democrats figure out their next steps after 2024’s electoral losses, many of the party’s younger leaders have called for leadership shakeups in Congress, and several have mounted challenges to more-senior committee leaders. 

One of the first Democrats to announce such a challenge was Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who made a bid for leadership of the House Natural Resources Committee against incumbent ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). Grijalva, who is retiring in 2027, initially said he would seek another term, but he withdrew shortly after and endorsed Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.). Stansbury withdrew amid overwhelming support for Huffman, who was formally voted ranking member this week. 

In the role, Huffman will put the effectiveness of the leadership shakeups to the test, particularly on issues such as environmental justice and renewable energy, where Trump is likely to seek to undo much of the party’s work of the past four years.

Read the full story here.
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Georgia hashes out plan to let data centers build their own clean energy

Big companies have spent years pushing Georgia to let them find and pay for new clean energy to add to the grid, in the hopes that they could then get data centers and other power-hungry facilities online faster. Now, that concept is tantalizingly close to becoming a reality, with regulators, utility Georgia Power,…

Big companies have spent years pushing Georgia to let them find and pay for new clean energy to add to the grid, in the hopes that they could then get data centers and other power-hungry facilities online faster. Now, that concept is tantalizingly close to becoming a reality, with regulators, utility Georgia Power, and others hammering out the details of a program that could be finalized sometime next year. If approved, the framework could not only benefit companies but also reduce the need for a massive buildout of gas-fired plants that Georgia Power is planning to satiate the artificial intelligence boom.Today, utilities are responsible for bringing the vast majority of new power projects online in the state. But over the past two years, the Clean Energy Buyers Association has negotiated to secure a commitment from Georgia Power that ​“will, for the first time, allow commercial and industrial customers to bring clean energy projects to the utility’s system,” said Katie Southworth, the deputy director for market and policy innovation in the South and Southeast at the trade group, which includes major hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The ​“customer-identified resource” (CIR) option will allow hyperscalers and other big commercial and industrial customers to secure gigawatts of solar, batteries, and other energy resources on their own, not just through the utility. The CIR option isn’t a done deal yet. Once Georgia Power, the Public Service Commission, and others work out how the program will function, the utility will file a final version in a separate docket next year. And the plan put forth by Georgia Power this summer lacks some key features that data center companies want. A big point of contention is that it doesn’t credit the solar and batteries that customers procure as a way to meet future peaks in power demand — the same peaks Georgia Power uses to justify its gas-plant buildout. But as it stands, CEBA sees ​“the approved CIR framework as a meaningful step toward the ​‘bring-your-own clean energy’ model,” Southworth said — a model that goes by the catchy acronym BYONCE in clean-energy social media circles. Opening up the playing field for clean energy The CIR option is technically an addition to Georgia Power’s existing Clean and Renewable Energy Subscription (CARES) program, which requires the utility to secure up to 4 gigawatts of new renewable resources by 2035. CARES is a more standard ​“green tariff” program that leaves the utility in control of contracting for resources and making them available to customers under set terms, Southworth explained. Under the CIR option, by contrast, large customers will be able to seek out their own projects directly with a developer and the utility. Georgia Power will analyze the projects and subject them to tests to establish whether they are cost-effective. Once projects are approved by Georgia Power, built, and online, customers can take credit for the power generated, both on their energy bills and in the form of renewable energy certificates. Georgia Power’s current plan allows the procurement of up to 3 gigawatts of customer-identified resources through 2035. Letting big companies contract their own clean power is far from a new idea. Since 2014, corporate clean-energy procurements have surpassed 100 gigawatts in the United States, equal to 41% of all clean energy added to the nation’s grid over that time, according to CEBA. Tech giants have made up the lion’s share of that growth and have continued to add more capacity in 2025, despite the headwinds created by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress. But most of that investment has happened in parts of the country that operate under competitive energy markets, in which independent developers can build power plants and solar, wind, and battery farms. The Southeast lacks these markets, leaving large, vertically integrated utilities like Georgia Power in control of what gets built. Perhaps not coincidentally, Southeast utilities also have some of the country’s biggest gas-plant expansion plans. A lot of clean energy projects could use a boost from power-hungry companies. According to the latest data from the Southern Energy Renewable Association trade group, more than 20 gigawatts of solar, battery, and hybrid solar-battery projects are now seeking grid interconnection in Georgia. “The idea that a large customer can buy down the cost of a clean energy resource to make sure it’s brought onto the grid to benefit them and everybody else, because that’s of value to them — that’s theoretically a great concept,” said Jennifer Whitfield, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit that’s pushing Georgia regulators to find cleaner, lower-cost alternatives to Georgia Power’s proposed gas-plant expansion. ​“We’re very supportive of the process because it has the potential to be a great asset to everyone else on the grid.” Isabella Ariza, staff attorney at the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said CEBA deserves credit for working to secure this option for big customers in Georgia. In fact, she identified it as one of the rare bright spots offsetting a series of decisions from Georgia Power and the Public Service Commission that environmental and consumer advocates fear will raise energy costs and climate pollution.

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Renowned Astronomers Push to Protect Chile's Cherished Night Sky From an Industrial Project

Chile’s Atacama Desert is one of the darkest spots on earth, a crown jewel for astronomers who flock from around the world to study the origins of the universe in this inhospitable desert along the Pacific coast

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s Atacama Desert is one of the darkest spots on earth, a crown jewel for astronomers who flock from around the world to study the origins of the universe in this inhospitable desert along the Pacific coast.“It's a perfect cocktail for astronomy,” said Daniela González, executive director of the Skies of Chile Foundation, a nonprofit that defends the quality of the country’s night skies. A private company is pressing ahead with plans to construct a giant renewable energy complex in sight of one of Earth’s most productive astronomical facilities — the Paranal Observatory, operated by an international consortium known as the European Southern Observatory, or ESO.In the letter, 30 renowned international astronomers, including Reinhard Genzel, a 2020 Nobel laureate in astrophysics who conducted much of his prize-winning research on black holes with the ESO-operated telescopes in the Atacama Desert, describe the project as “an imminent threat” to humanity's ability to study the cosmos, and unlock more of its unknowns.“The damage would extend beyond Chile’s borders, affecting a worldwide scientific community that relies on observations made at Paranal to study everything from the formation of planets to the early universe,” the letter reads. “We are convinced that economic development and scientific progress can and must coexist to the benefit of all people in Chile, but not at the irreversible expense of one of Earth’s unique and irreplaceable windows to the universe.”The scientists join a chorus of voices that have been urging the Chilean government to relocate the hydrogen-based fuel production plant since the plan was unveiled a year ago by AES Andes, an offshoot of the American-based multinational AES Corp. In response to a request for comment, AES Corp. said that its own technical studies showed the project would be “fully compatible” with astronomical observations and compliant with the Chilean government's strict regulations on light pollution. "We encourage trust in the country’s institutional strength, which for decades has guaranteed certainty and environmental protection for multiple productive sectors," the company said.The plan, which is still under environmental review, calls for 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of wind and solar energy farms, a desalination plant and a new port. That means not only a major increase in light pollution but also new dust, ground vibrations and heightened atmospheric turbulence that blurs stars and makes them twinkle. All of that — just three kilometers (miles) from the Paranal Observatory’s high-powered telescopes — will mess the view of key astronomical targets and could obstruct scientific advances, experts say. “At the best sites in the world for astronomy, stars don't twinkle. They are very stable, and even the smallest artificial turbulence would destroy these characteristics,” said Andreas Kaufer, the director of operations at ESO, which assesses that the AES project would increase light pollution by 35%.“If the sky is becoming brighter from artificial light around us, we cannot do these observations anymore. They're lost. And, since we have the biggest and most sensitive telescopes at the best spot in the world, if they're lost for us, they're lost for everyone." “Major observatories have been chased out to remote locations, and essentially now they’re chased out to some of the last remaining dark sky locations on Earth, like the Atacama Desert, the mountain peaks of Hawaii, areas around Tucson, Arizona,” said Ruskin Hartley, the executive director of DarkSky International, a Tuscon-based nonprofit founded by astronomers. “All of them are now at risk from encroaching development and mining. It’s happening everywhere.”DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

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New control system teaches soft robots the art of staying safe

MIT CSAIL and LIDS researchers developed a mathematically grounded system that lets soft robots deform, adapt, and interact with people and objects, without violating safety limits.

Imagine having a continuum soft robotic arm bend around a bunch of grapes or broccoli, adjusting its grip in real time as it lifts the object. Unlike traditional rigid robots that generally aim to avoid contact with the environment as much as possible and stay far away from humans for safety reasons, this arm senses subtle forces, stretching and flexing in ways that mimic more of the compliance of a human hand. Its every motion is calculated to avoid excessive force while achieving the task efficiently. In MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Laboratory for Information and Decisions Systems (LIDS) labs, these seemingly simple movements are the culmination of complex mathematics, careful engineering, and a vision for robots that can safely interact with humans and delicate objects.Soft robots, with their deformable bodies, promise a future where machines move more seamlessly alongside people, assist in caregiving, or handle delicate items in industrial settings. Yet that very flexibility makes them difficult to control. Small bends or twists can produce unpredictable forces, raising the risk of damage or injury. This motivates the need for safe control strategies for soft robots. “Inspired by advances in safe control and formal methods for rigid robots, we aim to adapt these ideas to soft robotics — modeling their complex behavior and embracing, rather than avoiding, contact — to enable higher-performance designs (e.g., greater payload and precision) without sacrificing safety or embodied intelligence,” says lead senior author and MIT Assistant Professor Gioele Zardini, who is a principal investigator in LIDS and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and an affiliate faculty with the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). “This vision is shared by recent and parallel work from other groups.”Safety firstThe team developed a new framework that blends nonlinear control theory (controlling systems that involve highly complex dynamics) with advanced physical modeling techniques and efficient real-time optimization to produce what they call “contact-aware safety.” At the heart of the approach are high-order control barrier functions (HOCBFs) and high-order control Lyapunov functions (HOCLFs). HOCBFs define safe operating boundaries, ensuring the robot doesn’t exert unsafe forces. HOCLFs guide the robot efficiently toward its task objectives, balancing safety with performance.“Essentially, we’re teaching the robot to know its own limits when interacting with the environment while still achieving its goals,” says MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering PhD student Kiwan Wong, the lead author of a new paper describing the framework. “The approach involves some complex derivation of soft robot dynamics, contact models, and control constraints, but the specification of control objectives and safety barriers is rather straightforward for the practitioner, and the outcomes are very tangible, as you see the robot moving smoothly, reacting to contact, and never causing unsafe situations.”“Compared with traditional kinematic CBFs — where forward-invariant safe sets are hard to specify — the HOCBF framework simplifies barrier design, and its optimization formulation accounts for system dynamics (e.g., inertia), ensuring the soft robot stops early enough to avoid unsafe contact forces,” says Worcester Polytechnic Institute Assistant Professor and former CSAIL postdoc Wei Xiao.“Since soft robots emerged, the field has highlighted their embodied intelligence and greater inherent safety relative to rigid robots, thanks to passive material and structural compliance. Yet their “cognitive” intelligence — especially safety systems — has lagged behind that of rigid serial-link manipulators,” says co-lead author Maximilian Stölzle, a research intern at Disney Research and formerly a Delft University of Technology PhD student and visiting researcher at MIT LIDS and CSAIL. “This work helps close that gap by adapting proven algorithms to soft robots and tailoring them for safe contact and soft-continuum dynamics.”The LIDS and CSAIL team tested the system on a series of experiments designed to challenge the robot’s safety and adaptability. In one test, the arm pressed gently against a compliant surface, maintaining a precise force without overshooting. In another, it traced the contours of a curved object, adjusting its grip to avoid slippage. In yet another demonstration, the robot manipulated fragile items alongside a human operator, reacting in real time to unexpected nudges or shifts. “These experiments show that our framework is able to generalize to diverse tasks and objectives, and the robot can sense, adapt, and act in complex scenarios while always respecting clearly defined safety limits,” says Zardini.Soft robots with contact-aware safety could be a real value-add in high-stakes places, of course. In health care, they could assist in surgeries, providing precise manipulation while reducing risk to patients. In industry, they might handle fragile goods without constant supervision. In domestic settings, robots could help with chores or caregiving tasks, interacting safely with children or the elderly — a key step toward making soft robots reliable partners in real-world environments. “Soft robots have incredible potential,” says co-lead senior author Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL and a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “But ensuring safety and encoding motion tasks via relatively simple objectives has always been a central challenge. We wanted to create a system where the robot can remain flexible and responsive while mathematically guaranteeing it won’t exceed safe force limits.”Combining soft robot models, differentiable simulation, and control theoryUnderlying the control strategy is a differentiable implementation of something called the Piecewise Cosserat-Segment (PCS) dynamics model, which predicts how a soft robot deforms and where forces accumulate. This model allows the system to anticipate how the robot’s body will respond to actuation and complex interactions with the environment. “The aspect that I most like about this work is the blend of integration of new and old tools coming from different fields like advanced soft robot models, differentiable simulation, Lyapunov theory, convex optimization, and injury-severity–based safety constraints. All of this is nicely blended into a real-time controller fully grounded in first principles,” says co-author Cosimo Della Santina, who is an associate professor at Delft University of Technology. Complementing this is the Differentiable Conservative Separating Axis Theorem (DCSAT), which estimates distances between the soft robot and obstacles in the environment that can be approximated with a chain of convex polygons in a differentiable manner. “Earlier differentiable distance metrics for convex polygons either couldn’t compute penetration depth — essential for estimating contact forces — or yielded non-conservative estimates that could compromise safety,” says Wong. “Instead, the DCSAT metric returns strictly conservative, and therefore safe, estimates while simultaneously allowing for fast and differentiable computation.” Together, PCS and DCSAT give the robot a predictive sense of its environment for more proactive, safe interactions.Looking ahead, the team plans to extend their methods to three-dimensional soft robots and explore integration with learning-based strategies. By combining contact-aware safety with adaptive learning, soft robots could handle even more complex, unpredictable environments. “This is what makes our work exciting,” says Rus. “You can see the robot behaving in a human-like, careful manner, but behind that grace is a rigorous control framework ensuring it never oversteps its bounds.”“Soft robots are generally safer to interact with than rigid-bodied robots by design, due to the compliance and energy-absorbing properties of their bodies,” says University of Michigan Assistant Professor Daniel Bruder, who wasn’t involved in the research. “However, as soft robots become faster, stronger, and more capable, that may no longer be enough to ensure safety. This work takes a crucial step towards ensuring soft robots can operate safely by offering a method to limit contact forces across their entire bodies.”The team’s work was supported, in part, by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Scholarships, the European Union’s Horizon Europe Program, Cultuurfonds Wetenschapsbeurzen, and the Rudge (1948) and Nancy Allen Chair. Their work was published earlier this month in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Robotics and Automation Letters.

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FirstEnergy seeks looser reliability rules as outages grow more common

Extreme weather is making the grid more prone to outages — and now FirstEnergy’s three Ohio utilities want more leeway on their reliability requirements. Put simply, FirstEnergy is asking the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to let Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., Ohio Edison, and Toledo Edison take longer to…

Extreme weather is making the grid more prone to outages — and now FirstEnergy’s three Ohio utilities want more leeway on their reliability requirements. Put simply, FirstEnergy is asking the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to let Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., Ohio Edison, and Toledo Edison take longer to restore power when the lights go out. The latter two utilities would also be allowed slightly more frequent outages per customer each year. Comments regarding the request are due to the utilities commission on Dec. 8, less than three weeks after regulators approved higher electricity rates for hundreds of thousands of northeast Ohio utility customers. An administrative trial, known as an evidentiary hearing, is currently set to start Jan. 21. Consumer and environmental advocates say it’s unfair to make customers shoulder the burden of lower-quality service, as they have already been paying for substantial grid-hardening upgrades. “Relaxing reliability standards can jeopardize the health and safety of Ohio consumers,” said Maureen Willis, head of the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, which is the state’s legal representative for utility customers. ​“It also shifts the costs of more frequent and longer outages onto Ohioans who already paid millions of dollars to utilities to enhance and develop their distribution systems.” The United States has seen a rise in blackouts linked to severe weather, a 2024 analysis by Climate Central found, with about twice as many such events happening from 2014 through 2023 compared to the 10 years from 2000 through 2009. The duration of the longest blackouts has also grown. As of mid-2025, the average length of 12.8 hours represents a jump of almost 60% from 2022, J.D. Power reported in October. Ohio regulators have approved less stringent reliability standards before, notably for AES Ohio and Duke Energy Ohio, where obligations from those or other orders required investments and other actions to improve reliability. Some utilities elsewhere in the country have also sought leeway on reliability expectations. In April, for example, two New York utilities asked to exclude some outages related to tree disease and other factors from their performance metrics, which would in effect relax their standards. Other utilities haven’t necessarily pursued lower targets, but have nonetheless noted vulnerabilities to climate change or experienced more major events that don’t count toward requirements. FirstEnergy’s case is particularly notable because the company has slow-rolled clean energy and energy efficiency, two tools that advocates say can cost-effectively bolster grid reliability and guard against weather-related outages. There is also a certain irony to the request: FirstEnergy’s embrace of fossil fuels at the expense of clean energy and efficiency measures has let its subsidiaries’ operations and others continue to emit high levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide. Now, the company appears to nod toward climate-change-driven weather variability as justification for relaxed reliability standards. FirstEnergy filed its application to the Public Utilities Commission last December, while its recently decided rate case and other cases linked to its House Bill 6 corruption scandal were pending. FirstEnergy argues that specific reliability standards for each of its utilities should start with an average of the preceding five years’ performance. From there, FirstEnergy says the state should tack on extra allowances for longer or more frequent outages to ​“account for annual variability in factors outside the Companies’ control, in particular, weather impacts that can vary significantly on a year-to-year basis.” “Honestly, I don’t know of a viable hypothesis for this increasing variability outside of climate change,” said Victoria Petryshyn, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Southern California, who grew up in Ohio. In summer, systems are burdened by constant air conditioning use during periods of extreme heat and humidity. In winter, frigid air masses resulting from disruptions to the jet stream can boost demand for heat and ​“cause extra strain on the grid if natural-gas lines freeze,” Petryshyn said.

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Climate
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Trump order to keep Michigan power plant open costs taxpayers $113m

Critics say JH Campbell coal-fired plant in western Michigan is expensive and emits high levels of toxic pollutionTrump administration orders to keep an ageing, unneeded Michigan coal-fired power plant online has cost ratepayers from across the US midwest about $113m so far, according to estimates from the plant’s operator and regulators.Still, the US energy department last week ordered the plant to remain open for another 90 days. Continue reading...

Trump administration orders to keep an ageing, unneeded Michigan coal-fired power plant online has cost ratepayers from across the US midwest about $113m so far, according to estimates from the plant’s operator and regulators.Still, the US energy department last week ordered the plant to remain open for another 90 days.The Trump administration in May ordered utility giant Consumers Energy to keep the 63-year-old JH Campbell coal plant in western Michigan, about 100 miles north-east of Chicago, online just as it was being retired.The order has drawn outrage from consumer advocates and environmental groups who say the plant is expensive and emits high levels of toxic air pollution and greenhouse gas.The costs will be spread among households across the northern and central regional Miso grid, which stretches from eastern Montana to Michigan, and includes nine other states“The costs of unnecessarily running this jalopy coal plant just continue to mount,” said Michael Lenoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is suing over the order.Gary Rochow, Consumers Energy’s CEO, told investors in a 30 October earnings call that the Trump administration in its order stated that ratepayers should shoulder the costs, and detailed how the company should pass on the costs.“That order from the energy department has laid out a clear path to cost recovery,” Rochow said.The utility has said in regulatory filings that the order is costing customers about $615,000 per day. The order has been in place for around six months.Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel filed a motion for a stay in federal court, alleging the administration’s latest order is “arbitrary and illegal”.The coal plant is one of two in Michigan that the Trump administration has moved to keep open under the president’s controversial national energy emergency executive order, which is being challenged in court by multiple lawsuits.The other plant is not scheduled to close for two years. The two factories emit about 45% of the state’s greenhouse gas pollution.Trump has also used his emergency energy order to keep gas plants near Baltimore and Philadelphia online.Consumers Energy said it did not ask for Campbell to remain open. The Trump administration did not consult local regulators, a spokesperson for the Michigan public service commission (MPSC), which regulates utilities and manages the state’s grid, told the Guardian in May.“The unnecessary recent order … will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses in Michigan and across the midwest,” the chair of the MPSC, Dan Scripps, said in a statement at the time.The latest figures proved Scripps correct.In May, an energy department spokesperson insisted in a statement that retiring the coal plants “would jeopardize the reliability of our grid systems”.But regulatory data from Miso and the MPSC over the last six months shows that statement was wrong.The Miso grid had excess power far above what Campbell provided during peak demand this summer. And the plant often was not operating at full capacity, likely because its power was not needed, advocates say. But the plant still costs ratepayers even when not operating at capacity.The energy department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the data showing it was not necessary to keep the plant open.Campbell and Michigan’s other coal plant that the Trump administration is aiming to keep online release high levels of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter into the air. Meanwhile, their coal ash ponds leach arsenic, lead, lithium, radium and sulfate into local drinking water and the Great Lakes.Consumers Energy had since 2021 been planning for the Campbell’s closure as required by the state’s energy plan. The company said the plant’s closure would save ratepayers in the state about $600m by 2040.

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Pollution
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Documentary

A Low Carbon Future for China’s Furnace Cities

China’s economic development and rapid urbanization has led to a dramatic rise in energy consumption due to excessive heating and air-conditioning causing carbon emissions of immense proportions. China’s government has set the ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by 40–45% by 2020 against the 2005 baseline. A UK/China-funded team working on how to solve the problem in some of the most extreme climate regions in China. The team discovers groundbreaking solutions using computational-fluid-dynamics simulations.

CO2
Energy
Climate

Precarious

An independent art film, Precarious is a haunting evocation of the aftermath of the explosion at Chernobyl, 25 years on. Accompanied by testimony from a group of unseen veterans of the disaster, Precarious bears witness to both the folly and resilience of humans and to nature's fragility.

Crisis
Pollution
Energy

CHAO CARBÓN DOCUMENTARY

Mr. Aes Gener is a greedy mega-entrepreneur in the energy business. Through his story we get into the dirty business he has done in Chile and the world with coal, while we see, through archival footage, the damage to people and nature of this obsolete and polluting fossil fuel.

Energy
Pollution
Activism

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