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A $500 million Biden-era grant to decarbonize steelmaking has been refashioned by the Trump administration to upgrade a coal-fueled blast furnace in southern Ohio. On Friday, Cleveland-Cliffs confirmed that the U.S. Department of Energy had changed the scope of the previously awarded funding for Cliffs’ Middletown…

This analysis and news roundup come from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. The U.S. depends on hydroelectric power — and ever-worsening drought is threatening its supply. The western half of the country has faced a water crisis for years, and things have only gotten more dire in…

See more from Canary Media’s ​“Chart of the Week” column . It’s a tough time to build renewable energy in the U.S. In 2026 alone, the Trump administration has phased out tax credits , frozen clean-energy permitting , and issued tariffs certain to raise the cost of solar — while continuing to take lazy and…

Last month, grid operator PJM Interconnection unveiled a long-awaited proposal to prevent data centers from spiking power prices — but the plan largely relies on states to give it teeth . Pennsylvania, one of the biggest states in PJM’s 13-state territory, is taking up that challenge. This week, Pennsylvania Gov.…

Heat pumps are a key way to get fossil fuels out of buildings — and the tech recently notched a win in the U.S. housing market. 2025 marked the first year that over half the apartment buildings constructed nationwide came equipped with the überefficient electric appliances , according to U.S. Census Bureau data .…

For the better part of the year, Duke Energy’s bid to jack up electric rates in North Carolina has been hotly contested by politicians, consumer advocates, and the public at large. Under the utility’s latest proposal before state regulators, the average Duke residential customer could pay about $10 more on their…

LANSING, Mich. — The Trump administration has made clear its disdain for electric vehicles and clean energy. Yet at the grand opening of South Korea–based LG Energy Solution’s latest battery manufacturing facility, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum cheered the factory as a fulfillment of the president’s agenda. “That’s…

Sage Geosystems has hit a big milestone out on a rugged tract near San Antonio: The startup is producing power from its first next-generation geothermal plant. The system is just the third of its kind to come online in the U.S. as the sector races to commercialize the source of on-demand clean electricity. The novel…

This story was originally published by Grist . Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here. Inside the vast Qcells factory in Cartersville, Georgia, workers — and a bevy of robots — move ultrathin slices of polysilicon through a lengthy series of machines and chemical baths to get what are known as cells. “The…

Next-generation geothermal energy has massive potential in the western United States, but it won’t be realized unless developers can overcome the big economic barriers these novel systems face. Unlike traditional geothermal plants, next-gen projects use innovative underground techniques to produce power wherever…

California’s Democratic candidate for governor, Xavier Becerra, is borrowing a page from Australia with a new plan to give state residents free electricity during certain parts of the day. Last week, Becerra unveiled a proposal to offer up to two free hours of electricity per day, starting with low-income families.…

California, with its sky-high electricity prices, isn’t facing the same influx of data centers that many other states are. But the massive facilities are still being built and proposed in California — and legislators are racing to stop them from pushing up utility rates and pollution. Two major data center bills…

The waters of Boston Harbor, most famous for the crates of tea hurled rebelliously into them more than 250 years ago, could soon be the site of a whole new kind of disruption. “We’re launching a thermal revolution,” said Zeyneb Magavi, executive director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, or HEET, a Boston-based…

Following a key legal deadline last Friday, the stage is now set for the Ohio Power Siting Board to make a final decision about whether the state’s largest solar and energy storage project to date can move ahead. The OPSB initially approved the Oak Run Solar Project in March 2024, but the case has since been bogged…

This analysis and news roundup come from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. The data center elections are officially upon us. Public frustration with data centers has been simmering, and in recent months it has become increasingly clear that the topic would reshape the 2026…

This story was originally published by Grist . Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter. A few years ago, environmental scientist Elliot Campbell went around asking people why they would, or would not, switch to an electric vehicle. A surprising number of them asked him a question in return: Because building an EV…

See more from Canary Media’s ​“Chart of the Week” column . Last fall, as generous federal incentives for consumer cleantech were set to expire, people raced to lock in good deals on EVs and rooftop solar . Then, this year, sales cratered. But home batteries bucked the trend. Federal tax credits for residential…

A recent ruling from federal regulators will let virtual power plants help meet surging energy demand in the county’s biggest energy market. Late last month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered PJM Interconnection to accept statistical sampling as a valid method for measuring the reliability of programs…

America’s aluminum sector is growing again after years of decline, spurred by tariffs and a push to revive domestic manufacturing. But the voracious power needs of aluminum smelters and communities’ concerns about pollution still pose major hurdles to scaling up production. Globally, a deficit in aluminum supply is…

It's almost an ironclad law: Over time, wind turbines get taller, better, and more cost-effective. A new proposed project in the U.K. demonstrates that. ScottishPower recently announced its intention to repower the U.K.’s largest onshore wind farm, a process that will involve replacing old turbines with…