Trump’s Latest Deal to Kill Offshore Wind Benefits a Donor

Current conditions: Tropical Storm Dolly formed in the Atlantic and is heading toward the Caribbean, threatening the Lesser Antilles with heavy rains and winds • Temperatures topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Las Vegas as the heat heads east to the Mississippi Valley • In Nepal, survivors of the catastrophic flood near the border with Tibet are swimming in debris-laden waters to fish out fuel cans as supplies run short.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump’s latest deal to kill an offshore wind project benefits a GOP donor

Earlier this month, the Trump administration brokered yet another deal to pay a developer to, as Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer put it bluntly, “not build wind farms.” The German energy giant RWE took the $1.2 billion deal to kill off three already-stalled projects in New York and New Jersey. Turns out the bulk of that will go to a billionaire who owns a mansion on a private island in Florida near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, and who personally donated nearly $1 million to the president’s inaugural committee. On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that the roughly $900 million from the settlement that RWE pledged to invest into liquified natural gas would go to a facility under construction by the company founded and run by Michael Dorrell, an Australian native with U.S. citizenship who has boasted of hobnobbing with his neighbor, the president. The White House said it had nothing to do with RWE’s decision to invest in the project, and called the newspaper’s story “a brazen attempt to insinuate a conflict-of-interest that does not exist.” But Representative Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said “fake ‘settlements’” that “were already an insane waste of taxpayer funds and a ridiculous charade that seems to be blatantly illegal” now also carry “the stench of corruption.”

2. A utility in Indiana says data centers could allow it to lower electricity prices

Cue the record scratch: We’ve got a narrative violation. A utility in the industrial Midwest portion of PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest and most infamously stressed grid system, says that all the money it’s making off data centers will justify lowering the price of electricity for everyone else. Fort Wayne-based Indiana Michigan Power asked state regulators to reduce the base rate by enough to shave roughly $100 off annual bills. If the savings apply to the average customer using 1,000 kilowatts a month, the total combined savings in 2027 could come out to $59 million, according to The Journal Gazette, a family-owned newspaper published six days a week in Indiana’s second-largest city. The utility said it expects the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to decide on its proposed plan next June, meaning savings would kick in during the summer. The utility also asked to freeze rates at a lower amount for three consecutive years as part of what it called “one of the nation’s largest base rate reduction plans,” which it said was “made possible thanks to load growth and increased revenue from large customers including data centers.”

Since 2021, electricity prices statewide in Indiana spiked by more than 30%, according to data from Heatmap and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Electricity Price Hub. But Indiana Michigan Power’s prices hiked by less than half the statewide average in that same period. When bills went up nearly 7% statewide last year, customers in the northeastern Indiana region that the utility serves saw a nearly 2% drop. All of which is to say: This particular case may not be as indicative of a potential trend as many might hope.

3. Investors pour nearly $300 million into a pair of deals for super-hot rocks and recycled metals

A pair of back-to-back funding deals on Thursday show just how much investors have warmed to geothermal and critical minerals, two domestic industries that — until recently — had spent decades either stagnant or in decline. Quaise Energy, the geothermal startup developing technology to drill to new depths in pursuit of super-hot rocks, just raised $180 million in its Series B. That includes a $35 million investment from Nabors Industries, owner and operator of one of the world’s largest fleets of drilling rigs. The money brings the Houston-based startup’s total fundraising to date to $280 million. “We are unlocking the most powerful clean energy source on Earth, and the Series B signals deep conviction across a wide range of investors,” Quaise CEO Carlos Araque said in a statement.

Meanwhile, metals recycler Cyclic Materials raised $75 million in a strategic financing round, bringing its total equity funding to date to $237 million. The latest funding was led by accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associate, which had previously invested in the startup last year. The company’s first commercial facility in Arizona is expected to come online this year, and the funding will support the “advancement” of an integrated rare earths campus in South Carolina. “Our continued investment reflects our confidence in the company’s ability to scale domestic rare earth recycling and production infrastructure for use across critical U.S. industries and technologies,” Vineet Khanna, an investment analyst at T. Rowe Price, said in a press release.

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4. Britons stop wanting to shop when temperatures top 77 degrees Fahrenheit

Even before the world outside feels like it’s burning, big chunks of the real-life human economy just stop churning. It seems self evident enough to be worthy of a rhyming truism (forgive me, I’m a recent recruit to the corny dad club). What’s alarming is that it’s starting to show up in data. A new Barclays survey of British businesses and consumers found that this year’s heat waves kept shoppers at bay, construction crews idled, and farmhands still. Temperatures above 77.2 degrees Fahrenheit were deemed too hot for shopping. Shave off just 2 degrees and Britons no longer wanted to commute. The construction and farming sectors took what Bloomberg called a “particularly hard hit” this summer when temperatures surpassed 100 degrees in the United Kingdom. But the newswire noted that the “intense heat also laid bare the extent to which much of Britain’s critical infrastructure is unprepared for rapidly rising temperatures, as schools, hospitals and public transport suffered under the strain.” As such, 60% of businesses reported that they are “now investing in or plan to invest in technologies to help them adapt to extreme heat.”

5. Solar really is booming in Africa

Exactly one year ago, I told you about new data showing that Africa’s purchases of Chinese solar panels had skyrocketed by 60%, with 20 countries setting new import records. Sierra Leone alone brought in enough panels to match more than 60% of its entire 2023 electrical output. What wasn’t clear is whether the equipment was going to warehouses or actually being deployed. Now Ember, the clean energy research firm behind last year’s analysis, is out with new numbers quantifying Africa’s solar boom. The continent installed record capacity of 17 gigawatts in 2026 so far, up 45% year-over-year. Chinese exports of solar panels to Africa soared in the 12 months leading up to June. Ember’s new analysis found that, including the Middle East and Latin America, around 73% of Chinese imports have been installed, with an average six-month delay. Across Africa, roughly 100,000 panels were installed every day in the past year.

Of Africa’s 54 countries, 36 are on track to install record amounts of solar in 2026, and 19 are exceeding 100% growth compared to the same period last year. The Democratic Republic of the Congo saw a 544% spike. Zimbabwe’s solar sector soared by 282%. Egypt’s by 176%. For Zambia, it’s 117%. Not too far behind is Sierra Leone, at 97%.

THE KICKER

Thailand is famously one of only a handful of modern nations never colonized by European empires. Some debate that distinction, since the kingdom once called Siam did, in fact, lose a lot of territory to French and British conquest. Today, however, Thailand is undeniably at the mercy of foreign energy powers. The country generates more than 60% of its electricity from natural gas, of which it produces little. Instead, it imports from Australia, Qatar, the U.S., Malaysia, and Oman. Maybe not for long. Bangkok has announced plans to shift away from gas and embrace renewables and nuclear power in the wake of the Iran War energy shock, Bloomberg reported. The country now aims to swap to producing 60% of its electricity from carbon-free sources in 25 years — more than double the previous goal.