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The Trump administration is holding up some funding for grants at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, The Hill reported. On April 1, the University of Colorado put out a statement saying that a federal pause on funding had put scientists who collect data about the atmosphere “at risk for elimination” after the White House Office of Management and Budget had “not released these funds.” The university’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences said that roughly 30 days before running out of funds to pay scientists, “we were informed that NOAA has put a pause on all grant actions.”
As I told you back in December, the Trump administration is also working to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, an institution credited with many of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in our understanding of weather and climate over the past 66 years since its founding. In a post on X at the time, Russell Vought, the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, called the institute “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” and said the administration would be “breaking up” its operations.
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright is scheduled to testify Wednesday morning before the House Committee on Appropriations to defend the White House’s latest budget request for his agency. He’s not the only chieftain of a federal agency with relevance to Heatmap readers who’s coming before Congress this week.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to launch the first phase of what’s called the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries tool in the agency’s automated commercial secure data portal to allow companies to request refunds of Trump administration tariffs the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unlawful earlier this year. Solar companies are among the thousands of American businesses that filed complaints with the U.S. Court of International Trade for refunds prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Those, according to Solar Power World, include American Wire Group, Canadian Solar, GameChange Solar, Fluke, Hellerman Tyton, Kinematics, JA Solar, Jinko Solar, Longi, Merlin Solar, Qcells, and Trina Solar.
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A geothermal plant in Southern California. David McNew/Getty Images
Established in early 2021, California Community Power is a quasi-governmental organization formed out of nine power providers across the Golden State. On Monday, the agency inked a series of deals with geothermal power developers to expand what’s widely considered one of the most promising clean-energy sources for California, which has some of the continent’s best hot-rock resources. XGS Energy, the Houston-based startup promising to build next-generation closed-loop geothermal systems, announced a deal to build 115 megawatts of power in the state. Zanskar, the geothermal company using AI to locate untapped conventional geothermal resources, also signed an agreement with the agency.
Zanskar in particular ranked among the most promising climate-tech startups on the U.S. market in Heatmap’s poll of experts earlier this year. The company last year announced its biggest find yet, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham reported last year. XGS, meanwhile, is drawing support from the nuclear industry, as I previously reported for Heatmap.
The developer behind a major Massachusetts offshore wind farm is suing its turbine manufacturer in a bid to keep the company from backing out of the project. By February, the Vineyard Wind project off Cape Cod had installed 60 of the project’s 62 turbines, as I reported at the time. Yet the parent company behind GE Renewables, the maker of the project’s turbines, said “it would be terminating its contracts for turbine services and maintenance at the end of April,” the Associated Press reported. GE Vernova, the parent company, says Vineyard Wind owes it $300 million already.
The war in Iran is taking a toll on Central African minerals. Miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are curbing output of copper and cobalt as the war cuts supplies of sulfuric acid needed for leaching minerals out of rock, Reuters reported. Mine managers are reducing cobalt production to conserve chemicals.
