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China plans to add about 1,500 steel, aluminum, and cement companies to its carbon market this year, according to the environment ministry. As of now, only power companies are included in the system, which was launched in 2021 and requires firms to buy carbon credits to cover their emissions. But the expansion has been in the works for a while, and will cover about 60% of China’s total emissions. The country will eventually rope in other industries such as building materials, chemicals, and aviation to account for about 75% of total emissions. The newly added industries will have softer emissions rules to begin with, with caps only coming into place in 2027. This delay will “ease the financial burden on the new entrants,” Bloombergnoted.
Rivian officially spun off a new micromobility company today aimed at helping people switch to small electric vehicles (think bikes, scooters, or golf carts) for short daily journeys. Rivian said the new company, called Also, has raised a $105 million Series B funding round. Also’s CEO Chris Yu told Heatmap’s Katie Brigham that owning a car and owning a smaller EV are not mutually exclusive. “If I’m taking my family to Yosemite on the weekend, I want to use my Rivian R1S, but for my daily school runs, probably not,” Yu said. Also’s flagship product is set to launch in the U.S. and Europe early next year, and will be followed by consumer and commercial products for the Asian and South American markets, though the company hasn’t yet said what these products will be.
A new report on 2024 renewable power trends has both good news and bad news: While the world added more renewables last year than ever before, we’re still not on track to triple capacity by 2030. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 585 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity was installed in 2024, “the largest increase in renewable energy capacity to date.” Renewables accounted for about 93% of all global power additions, with solar alone making up three-quarters of the installations. But “current growth rates indicate the world is not on track to triple installed renewable power capacity to 11 TW by 2030,” said IRENA’s international director general, Francesco La Camera. “With just 6 years remaining to meet the goal adopted at COP28 to triple installed renewable power capacity by 2030, the world now needs additions in excess of 1,120 GW each year for the rest of this decade to keep the world on a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway.”
In case you missed it: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has continued to withhold millions of dollars from states for disaster recovery, relief, and preparedness despite a district court’s order from March 6 calling on the administration to release the funds. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported, among the more than 200 FEMA grants to states that remain frozen are a case management program for survivors of the 2023 Maui wildfires, emergency readiness projects in Oregon, and flood hazard mitigation in Colorado, according to a motion filed on Monday in the lawsuit State of New York v. Trump. The motion was filed the day after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her department would move to “eliminate” FEMA during a cabinet meeting.
States say the lack of access to funding is going to start disrupting crucial programs. “If Hawaii doesn’t start receiving reimbursements for its federally-funded case management program by March 31, for example, it will be forced to immediately discontinue its work helping more than 4,000 wildfire survivors create tailored disaster recovery plans and navigate recovery resources,” Pontecorvo wrote.
Nissan confirmed that its Leaf EV is making a comeback, but this time it will be an SUV. The car will be available in the U.S. sometime in the next year. No word yet on pricing. The company showed off the vehicle for the first time today:
Nissan
Tesla sales have been falling in some key markets in response to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in the Trump administration and his meddling in European politics. In a poll provided to Heatmap last month, nearly half of likely U.S. voters said that Musk’s behavior had made them less likely to buy or lease a Tesla. As Bloomberg noted, BYD doesn’t sell in the U.S. due to tariffs on Chinese cars, “but it’s made big inroads into markets in Europe, places in Asia like Singapore and Thailand, as well as Australia.” On Sunday it rolled out its Qin L EV, which is a rival to Tesla’s Model 3 electric sedan, at half the price.
BYD
More than 100 clean energy companies, trade associations, and other industry stakeholders are descending on Capitol Hill this week to amplify an ongoing lobbying push to preserve clean energy tax credits in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill, Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reports. Their mission? Convince Republicans on the House Ways and Means committee that the clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act are key to executing President Trump’s energy agenda.
The Ways and Means Committee oversees tax writing, meaning that it will be responsible for proposing which of Trump’s tax cuts to include in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill, how to pay for them, and which of the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits should stay or go. Although the Senate will also have a say, the signal in Washington right now is that whatever version of the bill the House passes is going to be pretty close to the final bill. “That’s why it’s so important for any Republican members who see the benefit of what’s happening in their communities and how their constituents are saving money on energy to be talking to their colleagues right now in Ways and Means,” said Andrew Reagan, the executive director of Clean Energy for America. Pontecorvo spoke with Reagan about this week’s lobbying push. Read their full conversation here.
Hyundai Motor Group announced on Monday it plans to build a $5.8 billion steel plant in Louisiana, part of a larger $21 billion investment in the South Korean automaker’s U.S.-based manufacturing operations. The company’s executives held a joint press conference at the White House to unveil the plans alongside President Trump and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. The plant will produce 2.7 million tons of steel a year to be used to make Hyundai vehicles (and cars for its sister brands Kia and Genesis) at Hyundai plants in Alabama and Georgia. Other manufacturers may also use the steel.
Trump said the announcement was proof that his tariff threats work, but it’s also considered a boost for electric vehicles. The $21 billion investment includes money for projects to build more hybrids and EVs, EV batteries, and charging infrastructure in the U.S. Last year, Hyundai was America’s second best-selling EV maker. Tomorrow it will celebrate the recent opening of its new EV and battery plant in Georgia.
The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it will not hear an appeal in a landmark youth-led climate case, putting an end to the 10-year legal battle. In Juliana v. United States, 21 young people sued the federal government, arguing it violated their constitutional rights by rolling out policies supporting fossil fuel usage. A lower court dismissed the suit in 2020, saying that the court system was not the right place to argue about climate change and that “the plaintiffs’ impressive case for redress must be presented to the political branches of government.” This case has served as a framework for other environmental lawsuits in recent years, some of them successful. A plaintiff in one of those cases saidJuliana had “left an indelible mark on the landscape of climate litigation.”
U.S.-based fusion power company Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced today it has started building its SPARC tokamak in Devens, Massachusetts. CFS says that by 2027, its SPARC tokamak will be “the world’s first commercially relevant fusion energy machine to produce more energy from fusion than it needs to power the process.” This month the company installed the tokamak’s cryostat base, which will help to keep the system’s magnets cool. With assembly of SPARC underway, “we can now see the beginnings of the actual machine we’ll use to prove the commercial viability of our technology,” the company said in a press release.
Researchers in Europe have developed a highly-efficient transparent solar cell that could pave the way for solar windows.
