"The Trump administration said Wednesday it’s buying back another energy company’s U.S. offshore wind leases for four more wind projects, as it seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels. The latest deal brings the total amount spent on these agreements to nearly $2.6 billion."
"Residents of West Oakland, which suffers from toxic waste and high pollution rates, rally against a coal export facility"
"The Trump administration urged a federal court on Monday to dismiss an environmental lawsuit against Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, saying the company’s Grok government model and the data centers that power it are crucial to national security. The NAACP alleges that xAI has rushed to build and continue expanding its Colossus Gas Plant in vulnerable and heavily Black communities near the Tennessee-Mississippi border without legally required permits or pollution controls."
"Trump’s EPA is planning to weaken restrictions on oil and gas wells that produce very little energy but release vast amounts of methane. Oil billionaire Jeffery Hildebrand, a major Trump donor, is set to reap the benefits. Society as a whole will deal with the environmental costs."
"An executive order in Massachusetts and a regulatory commission action in Minnesota are among the big moves this year that highlight the growing role of virtual power plants in grid management."
"Some day in the next 12 months – maybe in late-August, maybe not until next spring – Lake Mead will drop below the critical threshold of 1,035 feet above sea level. That is the water-level elevation at which hydropower generating capacity at Hoover Dam, the largest in the Colorado River basin, will be cut by 70 percent."
"The Orlando plant had been scheduled for retirement in 2025. The order cited an energy emergency related to a shortage of facilities and proliferation of data centers."
"Renewable energy groups are suing the U.S. military because they say national security reviews for new wind farms on private land have been effectively frozen for months. The groups say this logjam jeopardizes $47 billion in investments and thousands of jobs in 21 states."
"More than 200 data centers are going up in dozens of competitive House districts — and neither party knows how to handle their political fallout heading into the midterms."
"The U.S. just hit a big milestone: It got more power from solar panels than from coal plants in May."
