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Deciding what counts as a heat death is more difficult than it sounds.
On America’s thorium progress, Google’s solar buy, and Chinese nuclear
On American nuclear, a labor union record, and climate tech’s resurgence
On Trump’s mineral paradox, China’s Great Green Wall, and sodium-ion batteries
Generate Capital, CalSTRS, and the Rhodium Group have teamed up on a new Transition Acceleration Framework to measure and assess emissions impacts.
The most common way to judge whether a company or project is helping to tackle climate change is to measure emissions. Has the company reduced its carbon footprint? Will the project add fewer greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere than alternatives?
It’s a useful metric, but a limited one. One company might be doing more to advance the energy transition than another — by investing in an expensive, early-stage solution such as geothermal power, for example — but a comparison of their carbon footprints won’t necessarily show it. At the project level, a solar farm in Mississippi, where solar deployment has lagged, will do more to decarbonize the U.S. power grid than one of equal size in California, even though both projects emit zero carbon.
This presents a challenge for climate-minded investors like Jonah Goldman, the chief strategy officer of Generate Capital, who are trying to figure out where their dollars can make the biggest difference. To solve it, Goldman worked with colleagues at the California State Teachers Retirement System, which backs Generate’s investments, and a team at the Rhodium Group to develop a new way for investors to assess where to put their money.
“The question that most of the frameworks out there ask is, what are your carbon emissions today, and can your carbon emissions be lowered?” Goldman told me. “The Transition Acceleration Framework asks, how can you apply capital that has the best chance of getting to decarbonization over a reasonable time frame?
“It sounds like a similar question. It sounds like semantics. But it’s actually quite different,” he said.
At a high level, the Transition Acceleration Framework measures how much additional decarbonization a given investment can deliver beyond what would likely have occurred anyway. It can also be used to evaluate policy interventions and procurement decisions, such as where to get power for a data center. The Rhodium Group published a white paper describing the methodology on Thursday, as well as an accompanying report using it to evaluate options for powering data centers in the U.S.
The Transition Acceleration Framework has three components: transition potential, transition efficiency, and acceleration factor.
Transition potential is “the size of the emissions-reduction opportunity,” the white paper says — it measures the gap between the current trajectory for a given technology and its potential deployment in a deeply decarbonized world. Some of the solutions with the highest transition potential scores, per Rhodium’s analysis, include light duty electric vehicles and utility-scale solar.
Transition efficiency measures how effective a dollar spent on that technology can be at closing the gap, based on an estimate of the total capital expenditure required to realize the potential. There, more nascent solutions like low-carbon cement and geothermal power score higher than EVs and solar.
Rhodium combines these two complementary metrics into a single “technology factor,” a score on a scale from one to ten that can help identify the highest-leverage sectors to invest in. (The project is similar in spirit to Heatmap’s Decarbonize Your Life series, in which we tried to determine the highest-leverage actions a given individual could take to cut emissions. If you missed it, check it out.)
While the transition potential and efficiency metrics provide a high-level view into how transformative different types of investments can be, the third component of the framework — the acceleration factor — helps distinguish between specific projects.
This starts with an assessment of five “acceleration attributes” — cost reduction, capital availability, new markets, infrastructure and supply chains, and political economy — that represent different mechanisms by which a single investment can help move an entire technology category forward.
For cost reduction, for example, an investor might ask how likely it is that the project will reduce the cost of future deployments through learning by doing or economies of scale. If it’s a first-of-a-kind project, the answer is likely yes. For capital availability, they might look at whether the investment will de-risk the technology. Goldman praised Amazon’s early investment in Rivian delivery vans — not just because it took gas-powered Amazon vans off the road, but because it also spurred other automakers and major shippers such as Walmart and GM to follow suit.
“While the Amazon-Rivian deal wasn’t 100% responsible for it, it certainly was a huge signal to the market that there was safety in solving this last mile delivery problem,” he said.
The Rhodium report outlines a method investors can use to score and weight the various attributes and combine them with the technology factor score to reach a final “acceleration factor” score.
In an accompanying report, Rhodium researchers used the framework to compare a number of different options for powering data centers in the U.S. It’s a high-level assessment — i.e. it doesn’t consider project-specific acceleration attributes — but it provides a rough hierarchy of the arrangements that accelerate the energy transition the most against those that do the most harm. At the top of the list is a grid-connected data center that signs a power purchase agreement with a clean, firm generator, such as a nuclear or geothermal plant. At the bottom, with a negative score indicating it would actually hinder progress relative to a regular grid connection, is an off-grid data center powered entirely by natural gas.
Of course, hyperscalers prioritizing speed to power are unlikely to wait around for a nuclear plant to get built. But there are plenty of options between that and behind the meter gas. An off-grid data center that builds enough renewables and batteries for 95% of its electricity needs and relies on gas backup scores higher than a grid-connected project that buys spot market renewable energy certificates.
“Different data center power configurations can have a meaningfully different impact on the transition, even if you’re looking at things that might on the surface seem relatively similar,” Michael Delgado, a partner at Rhodium, told me.
For now, the Transition Acceleration Framework is just that — a framework. Rhodium is piloting it with Generate and CalSTRS, as well as some additional partners, conducting bespoke assessments or their portfolios and projects. The hope is that it could eventually inform not just individual investment decisions or portfolio analyses but regulations and policy packages.
“This is an open method that we’re trying to put out there and get feedback on from the investment and philanthropic and policy world,” Delgado said.
On Trump’s gas boom, Germany’s fusion push, and Meta’s Canadian complex
Current conditions: Sandusky, Ohio, just saw 17 inches of rain in one day, smashing the previous state record of just under 11 inches and blowing past the 1-in-1,000-year threshold of less than 9 inches • Another heat dome is forming over the western United States, threatening landlocked desert cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Palm Springs with temperatures over 110 degrees Fahrenheit • An extremely rare tornado touched down in Alaska’s Susitna Valley, one of just 11 recorded in the state since 1950.
The view Monday in front of a coffee shop in Nice, France. Valery HACHE / AFP via Getty Images
The record-shattering heatwave that roasted Europe last month killed thousands — and potentially far more than initially estimated. Last week, the French government released its estimate for the death toll from the elevated temperatures: 2,025 people died who wouldn’t have under average weather conditions. But Le Monde, the nation’s newspaper of record, suggested the tally was undercounting. On Tuesday, Carbon Brief published a new analysis by two scientists suggesting the actual figure surpassed 2,700 deaths. To calculate the difference, the two American researchers compared the observed temperatures from June 12 to 29 with their baseline average from 1980 to 2025 to understand the disparity between the number of deaths during heat waves then versus now. “We found that France experienced around 2,700 heat-related deaths above the average baseline,” the report concluded. “Day-to-day heat-related mortality rates rose from less than 100 to almost 300 on the hottest days of June 24 to 25.” In Germany, meanwhile, the Federal Statistical Office’s preliminary data shows more than 5,000 excess deaths during the late-June heat wave, Bloomberg reported. During the last full week of June, the agency known as Destatis recorded 5,486 more deaths than during the median from the same period from 2022 to 2025. Now yet another extreme heat wave is forming in Europe this week, the third so far this year.
The lethal heat has raised the volume and temperature of Europe’s ongoing debate over air conditioning. Much ink has been spilled over why, exactly, Europeans eschew the cooling appliances Americans adore. My colleague Robinson Meyer offered one of the most interesting explanations I have seen yet: Europe’s otherwise superior window design makes traditional AC units difficult to place. Either way, Europe’s surging far-right parties see a political opportunity in championing AC. France’s Rassemblement National, led by Marine Le Pen, has begun campaigning on expanding access to cooling. Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland, meanwhile, has accused the country’s center-right government of “abstaining from air conditioning” due to “climate hysteria,” leaving people to be “sacrificed on the altar” of energy austerity, per The Guardian.
When President Donald Trump took office at the start of 2025, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that 23 gigawatts of new gas plant capacity would be built in the U.S. between 2026 and 2030. The agency’s latest forecast for that same period is now 66 gigawatts. The boom reflects what E&E News described as both Trump’s energy policies and the rise of artificial intelligence. At the same time, a new International Energy Agency analysis suggests that Trump’s war against Iran dampened forecasts for global gas consumption for only the third time in seven years. Worldwide demand is expected to drop by 0.5% this year in response to major disruptions of liquified natural gas shipments from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Gas demand in Asia in particular softened amid higher prices and government efforts to switch from LNG to other fuels, such as coal. Fresh fighting in the Strait of Hormuz suggests the contraction could continue if the fragile ceasefire signed last month breaks. On Tuesday, two tankers were struck by projectiles while passing through the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The U.S. military accused Tehran of the attacks and launched new strikes on Iran, according to Al Jazeera. Trump told reporters at the NATO summit in Turkey this morning that the ceasefire was “over.”
In a more direct analysis of the effect of Trump’s energy policies on actual prices Americans pay, the think tank Energy Innovation found that the administration’s overall spending cuts and changes would force U.S. households to pay an additional $650 billion for energy between 2026 and 2040. That’s an average of $460 per household in 2035 and $490 in 2040. By eliminating incentives for electrification and green-energy manufacturing, the report concluded, the administration’s policies cost the U.S. a cumulative $2.3 trillion in lost gross domestic product through 2040.
Germany may have infamously abandoned nuclear fission, sending electricity prices soaring and making the country more reliant on coal and Russian gas imports. But Berlin wants fusion. On Tuesday, the Germany-based Proxima Fusion announced that it had raised nearly $469 million in its latest funding round, increasing its valuation to nearly $2.9 billion and establishing the startup as Europe’s best-funded fusion company. Among the backers were Google and the German utility giant RWE. “Google’s investment underscores continued interest in fusion as a potential source of abundant, carbon-free, firm energy over the long-term,” Proxima said in a press release. “One of the largest private investments in European technology this year — and the largest ever in European fusion — the round reflects growing recognition of fusion power as a strategic technology for energy security, economic resilience, and industrial competitiveness.”
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A major new mining project in Arizona that promises to increase the domestic supplies of at least five critical minerals just received final approval of its environmental review. On Tuesday, the U.S. Forest Service gave the developer South32’s Hermosa Critical Minerals Project the green light on the last step of its yearslong National Environmental Policy Act study. The completion of the NEPA process paves the way for the project to build key infrastructure beyond privately held property onto the federal land that’s part of the Coronado National Forest, including a primary access road, a tailing facility, and allowing the local utility to build a portion of a 138-kilovolt power line. It’s also a symbolic win for the Trump administration. The project was the first mine included in the federal FAST-41 permitting program to speed up approvals for key projects. South32 secured its place on that list due to the mine’s potential to generate zinc, silver, and manganese — all of which are needed for modern energy and military technologies. “From the beginning, we designed Hermosa to be a different kind of mine, and the federal review process helped make it even better,” Pat Risner, South32’s president in charge of Hermosa, said in a statement. Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, a potential contender for the Democratic presidential nod in 2028, praised the project for “producing critical minerals that will power our 21st Century energy economy.”
Meanwhile, the American lithium-mining startup EnergyX just pulled in a significant new investment to complete its giant project in Chile. Already a top global producer of the metal needed for batteries and electric vehicles, the South American nation’s new right-wing government is trying to draw in more private investment as it rethinks the country’s domestic energy policies, as I reported last week. On Monday, EnergyX unveiled a $225 million strategic investment from the Italian oil giant Eni. As I told you last year, Eni has bucked other oil majors’ downsizing the ambitions of their greener ventures, even investing $1 billion into Commonwealth Fusion Systems last fall.
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill approved a suite of legislation Tuesday to overhaul the process for siting data centers in the state, placing a new tariff on large loads, requiring companies to disclose water and energy use, and scaling back tax credits for server farms themselves. It’s no surprise: Sherrill, a Democrat, won last year after campaigning on cracking down on soaring power rates in a state Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin described last week as “ground zero for the political backlash to high electricity prices.” In a statement, Sherrill blamed “poor oversight, outdated policies, and rising demand on our electric grid by unchecked actors” for the price spike. “This is a breakthrough moment,” Rewiring America cofounder Ari Matusiak, who served on Sherrill’s transition team, said in a statement. “For the first time, a state has created a policy pathway for data centers to fund verified demand flexibility, including energy efficiency, demand response, behind-the-meter storage, and managed electrification. That means rising electricity demand can become an opportunity to invest in homes, businesses, and communities instead of shifting costs onto families and small businesses.
Hyperscalers, meanwhile, are now looking northward. On Tuesday, the Canadian outlet Juno News published a scoop identifying Meta as the mystery developer behind a $10 billion data center complex in Alberta, the western province of Canada also known for its tar sand oil fields. The Facebook parent company’s project is tied to a 932-megawatt gas-fired power plant.
The UAE’s oil and gas shipments are just starting to flow again — a reality that could remain tenuous as fighting renews in the Strait of Hormuz. But one thing has changed for sure: Abu Dhabi’s crude production is now unleashed. Since quitting the OPEC oil cartel in April, the UAE’s output of oil topped 3.8 million barrels per day, unnamed sources told Reuters. That’s a six-year high, apparently vindicating Abu Dhabi’s push against OPEC’s restrictions on pumping.
