Current conditions: The Central United States is facing this year’s largest outbreak of severe weather so far, with intense thunderstorms set to hit an area stretching from Texas to the Great Lakes for the next four days • Northern India is sweltering in temperatures as high as 13 degrees Celsius above historical norms • Australia issued evacuation alerts for parts of Queensland as floodwaters inundate dozens of roads.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Oil tumbles back to $90 per barrel as Trump promises Iran war is ‘very complete’
The price of futures contracts for crude oil fell below $85 per barrel Monday after President Donald Trump called the war against Iran “very complete, pretty much,” declaring that there was “nothing left in a military sense” in the country. “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force. Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones,” Trump told CBS News in a phone interview Monday. “If you look, they have nothing left.”
The dip, just a day after prices surged well past $100 per barrel, highlights what Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin described as the challenge of depending too much on fossil fuels for a payday. “Even $85 is substantially higher than the $57 per barrel price from the end of last year. At that point, forecasters from both the public and the private sectors were expecting oil to stick around $60 a barrel through 2026,” he wrote. “Of course, crude oil itself is not something any consumer buys — but those high prices would likely feed through to higher consumer prices throughout the U.S. economy.”
2. Global wind installations hit a record as momentum shifts to Asia
BNEF
The global wind industry set a record last year, adding 169 gigawatts of turbines throughout 2025, according to the latest analysis from the consultancy BloombergNEF. The 38% surge compared to 2024 came as the momentum in the sector shifted to Asia. Chinese companies made up eight of the top 10 global wind turbine suppliers, the report found, as domestic installations in the People’s Republic reached an all-time high. India, meanwhile, edged out the U.S. and Germany as the world’s second largest market after China. Of all global wind additions, 161 gigawatts, or 95%, were onshore turbines, mostly spurred on by the domestic boom in China. Not only did that same building blitz help Beijing-based Goldwind hold onto its top spot as the world’s leading turbine supplier, it vaulted Chinese manufacturers into the next five slots in the global ranking. “Thanks to stable long-term policy support, wind installations over the past decade have become increasingly concentrated in mainland China,” Cristian Dinca, wind associate at BloombergNEF and lead author of the report, said in a statement. “Chinese manufacturers consistently top the global rankings. They benefitted particularly in 2025, as companies and provinces rushed to commission projects ahead of power market reforms and to meet targets set out in the Five Year Plan.”
Like in solar and batteries, the domestic boom in China is starting to spill over abroad. As Matthew wrote last year, Chinese manufacturers are making a big push into the European market.
3. Arizona repeals renewable energy standard
Arizona’s utility regulator has repealed rules requiring electricity providers to generate at least 15% of their energy from renewables. Citing “dramatic” changes to the renewable energy landscape, the Arizona Corporation Commission said the cost to ratepayers of the rules adopted two decades ago was no longer justifiable, Utility Dive reported Monday. Since the rules first took effect in 2006, the utilities Arizona Public Services, Tucson Electric Power, and UniSource Energy Services “have collected more than $2.3 billion” in “surcharges from all customer classes to meet these mandates,” the regulator said in a press release following the March 4 ruling. “The mandates are no longer needed and the costs are no longer justified.”
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4. Startup asks FCC for permission to launch solar mirrors into space
Reflect Orbital wants to launch 50,000 giant mirrors into space to bounce sunlight to the night side of the planet to power solar farms after sunset, provide lighting to rescue workers, and light city streets. Now, The New York Times reported Monday, the Hawthorne, California-based startup is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to send its first prototype satellite into space with a 60-foot-wide mirror. The company, which has raised more than $28 million from investors, could launch its test project as early as this summer. The public comment period on the FCC application closed yesterday. “We’re trying to build something that could replace fossil fuels and really power everything,” Ben Nowack, Reflect Orbital’s chief executive, told the newspaper.
It’s emblematic of the kind of audacious climate interventions on which investors are increasingly gambling. Last fall, Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer broke news that Stardust Solutions, a startup promising to artificially cool the planet by spraying aerosols into the atmosphere that reflect the sun’s light back into space, had raised $60 million to commercialize its technology. In December, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham had a scoop on the startup Overview Energy raising $20 million to build panels in space and beam solar power back down to Earth.
5. The software company that could save the grid inks a data center deal
Emerald AI is a startup whose software Katie wrote last year “could save the grid” by helping data centers to ramp electricity usage up and down like a smart thermostat to allow more computing power to come online on the existing grid. InfraPartners is a company that designs, manufactures, and deploys prefabricated, modular data centers parts. You don’t need to be an expert in the data center industry’s energy problems to hear the wedding bells ringing. On Tuesday, the two companies announced a deal to partner on what they’re calling “flex-ready data centers,” a version of InfraPartners’ off the shelf computing hardware that comes equipped with Emerald AI’s software. “Building more infrastructure the way we have historically will not be fast enough. We need to make the infrastructure we have more intelligent by leveraging AI,” Bal Aujla, InfraPartners’ director of advanced research and engineering, said in a statement. “This partnership will turn data centers from grid constraints into grid partners and unlock more usable capacity from existing infrastructure. The result will be enhanced AI deployment without compromising reliability or sustainability.” Rather than rush to invest in big new power plants, Emerald AI chief scientist Ayse Coskun said making data centers flexible means “we can prudently expand our grid.”
THE KICKER
War in Iran may be halting shipments of oil and liquified natural gas out of the Persian Gulf. But that isn’t stopping Chinese clean energy manufacturers from preparing to send shipments toward the war-torn region. Despite the conflict, the Jiangsu-based Shuangliang announced last week that it had delivered 80 megawatts of electrolyzers to a Chinese port for shipment to a 300-megawatt green hydrogen and ammonia plant in the special economic zone in Duqm, Oman. I know what you’re going to say: Oman’s status as the region’s Switzerland — a diplomatic powerhouse with a modern history of strategic neutrality in even the most heated geopolitical conflicts — means it isn’t a target for Iranian missiles. And there’s no guarantee the shipment will head there immediately. But it’s a sign of how determined China’s electrolyzer industry is to sell its hardware overseas amid inklings of a domestic slowdown.
BNEF
