The Environmental Protection Agency is crafting a plan to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution limits on coal and gas-fired plants, the New York Times reports. Power plant emissions account for about a quarter of the nation’s planet-heating emissions.
He signed a series of executive orders today meant to revive the nuclear energy industry in the US, which has struggled to compete with cheaper sources of electricity. The president could also hit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with layoffs as part of a broader reorganization of the agency.
GOP lawmakers passed resolutions rescinding federal approval of California’s plans to require that all car sales be zero-emission by 2035, as well as policies limiting nitrogen oxide emissions and other pollutants from trucks.
Republicans fast-tracked passage of the resolutions using a maneuver that nonpartisan watchdogs said should be barred, and that Governor Gavin Newsom calls illegal. The Clean Air Act gives California authority to set state pollution limits that are more stringent than federal regulation.
The Empire Wind project off the coast of New York can restart construction, about a month after the Trump administration abruptly issued a stop work order. The project was reportedly bleeding $50 million a week during the pause as President Trump waged his war against windmills.
The company building it had considered taking legal action against the Trump administration; it already had federal and state permits in place and construction is roughly 30 percent complete.
Microsoft, TikTok, and other big names have signed deals with Climeworks, a company developing technologies to filter CO2 out of the air, as a way to try to clean up some of their planet-heating pollution. But Climeworks hasn’t even been able to capture enough CO2 to offset its own carbon footprint yet.
The climate tech company announced layoffs as it faces “a challenging time” that includes uncertainty around the future of its projects in the US.
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Teen Vogue points out the irony of turning to water-intensive and energy-hungry generative AI in a recent op-ed. The rush to build massive new AI data centers is driving up electricity demand, prolonging the use of fossil fuels, and hitting nearby communities with more pollution.
New wind farms are still being built, but they’ll have to weather the storm of the Trump administration.
House Republicans proposed cutting crucial Biden-era tax credits for wind, solar, and geothermal energy even though Republican districts have the most to gain from investments in renewables.
The Trump administration’s war on DEI is spurring scientists and researchers from Indigenous communities to seek new protections for their data.
This wildlife filmmaker documents the unseen beauty of freshwater ecosystems.
The Trump administration announced its decision Thursday to retire the database of billion dollar weather and climate disasters, part of an ongoing purge of federal scientific data. The number of billion dollar disasters hitting the US has increased over the years as climate change fuels stronger storms, floods, and fires — a trend the US is no longer tracking.
We saw this coming with President Trump and Elon Musk pummeling federal agencies including the EPA with budget and staffing cuts. DOGE kneecapped the agency after it cracked down on Musk’s companies, we reported last month. Health and environmental advocates are fighting the deregulatory spree at the EPA.
The company announced a new agreement with project developer Elementl Power to prepare three different sites for next-generation nuclear power plants. Google and other tech giants are putting their faith — and capital— in new nuclear technologies they hope can provide enough electricity for AI data centers.
More than 90 percent of Americans rely on federal science information, from weather forecasts to food safety warnings, according to a recent poll by the Association of Science and Technology Centers. Many of those resources are in jeopardy now as the Trump administration slashes the federal workforce and funding for health and science research.
The company announced the grant last week, which is supposed to support an effort to train 100,000 electrical workers and 30,000 apprentices across the US. A shortage of electricians has hampered efforts to add new, clean energy to power grids. And Google and other tech giants need more electricity for energy-hungry AI data centers.
In April, Google shared plans to use AI to speed up the process of connecting new power sources to the grid.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to shutter the program that certifies products for energy efficiency and slaps the recognizable blue Energy Star label on refrigerators, washers, dryers, LED bulbs, and more. CNN and E&E News report that Energy Star is on the chopping block as part of a “reorganization” planned at the Environmental Protection Agency that would end key initiatives on climate change.
The Trump administration has cut off access to data used globally for warnings about disasters and shortages.
The Trump administration notified contributors to the national climate assessment on Monday that they’ve been “dismissed” as it re-evaluates the scope of the report, the New York Times says. Since 2000, the report has been a key resource detailing how each region of the US is affected by drought, wildfire, flooding and other climate disasters.
It’s gathering “extremely precise” wind measurements using an instrument that sends out 200 laser pulses per second from an aircraft. By documenting how those pulses bounce off aerosol particles, NASA’s able to create 3D profiles showing wind speed and direction.
The hope is that this can make up for a dearth in data on winds above the surface of the Earth, which could lead to more accurate storm forecasts.
MIT Technology Review visited the eerie tree farms Apple and other companies rely on to try to cancel out their carbon emissions. Are they really helping to fight climate change? Or are they making problems worse? It’s complicated, and controversial, and a good read.
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A leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget proposes drastic cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency that leads weather and climate research in the US.
”We’ll go back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s,” former NOAA acting chief scientist Craig McLean tells ProPublica.
It paves the way for the startup to partner with OpenAI on energy deals in the future, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Oklo is developing a next-generation nuclear reactor meant to be smaller, cheaper, and easier to deploy than a traditional nuclear power plant. Altman and other tech leaders are bullish about advanced nuclear reactors one day powering energy-hungry AI data centers, with Google and Amazon recently inked agreements with other companies developing small modular reactors.
