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The eastern and northern United States are suffering under a hazy, poisonous cloud of wildfire smoke, produced by out-of-control forest fires in Quebec and Nova Scotia. The most toxic soot and ash are sitting virtually on top of North America’s most densely populated corridor, clouding the air in New York City; Toronto; Ottawa; Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.; and Norfolk, Virginia.
Air pollution alerts are in effect across the United States and Canada, affecting roughly 150 million people.
This is Heatmap’s set of commonly asked questions about the crisis. We’ll keep it updated throughout the event.
Hundreds of wildfires have raged across northern Quebec for the past few weeks, driven by unusually warm and dry conditions.
Then on Monday, a low-pressure system surrounded by counterclockwise winds moved just off New England’s coast. Its strong, dry gusts fanned the flames in Canada, then pushed the resulting smoke and ash into the eastern United States.
Intense Canadian fires are unusual this early in the season, but the fires this year were fed by a warm spring and drought-like condition, Kent Moore, an atmospheric-physics professor at the University of Toronto, told me. Because the fires took hold before the vegetation could “green up” for the spring, the conflagrations grew more rapidly than they normally would, he said.
The dry conditions also helped the fires ignite the soil itself. “Because the soil was so dry — because of the dry winter and the dry spring — the fire got into the ground,” he said. “The vegetation below ground started to burn, and those are much harder to put out.”
This is likely one of America’s worst days for air pollution in several decades, in terms of the number of people affected and the severity of the exposure, Marshall Burke, an economist and sustainability professor at Stanford, told me.
“It’s pretty off the chart,” Burke said. Wildfire smoke is affecting New York City much more acutely — and much earlier in the year — than it has at any time since 2006, when contemporary air-pollution data began to be kept.
It is difficult to attribute a single unprecedented event to climate change, and the climatology of wildfires in eastern North America is particularly challenging. (Climate change has more clearly worsened wildfires out West.) “This is probably an unlucky year for Canada, as far as wildfires go,” Moore, the atmospheric physicist, said.
But wildfires will become more likely across Canada as the climate changes, he said. And while climate change should broadly increase rainfall across Canada, it will also increase the likelihood of heat waves and more extreme spring and summer temperatures, which can make wildfires more likely.
“Nova Scotia has always had wildfires. It’s just they’ve had more wildfires this year than they have on average for the whole year,” he said. “There’s always going to be wildfires, but there’s going to be more of them.” As Canadian cities sprawl into previously uninhabited woodland areas, he added, the human impacts of wildfires will increase — even if the number and intensity of wildfires does not.
First, consult the air quality index at AirNow.gov. The AQI is a unit-less index of air quality running from zero to 500; any reading above 100 would rank as unusually polluted in the United States. On Wednesday afternoon, some air sensors in New York and New Jersey indicated that the AQI exceeded 400.
If it’s higher than 100, then the most vulnerable groups of people — including children, the elderly, anyone with a cardiopulmonary condition, and pregnant women — should limit strenuous activity outdoors. If higher than 150, then people should generally try to limit their outdoor activity; at levels above 200, the air is considered unhealthy and everyone should try to go outside as little as possible.
If you think you might be especially vulnerable, err on the side of caution. Recently, a body of new and large-scale studies have shown that air pollution is generally worse for the body and brain than previously thought.
Then, if you’re in an area with hazardous air pollution, consider how to limit your exposure to the air as much as possible. Keep your doors and windows closed. An air filter outfitted with a HEPA filter can improve the air in a home or apartment. It should generally be closer to the most sensitive people.
“Any pregnant moms — if my wife or anyone I knew was pregnant right now — I would be texting them to stay inside and sit by an air filter,” Burke told me. Exposure to severe air pollution during pregnancy has been shown to increase the risk of preterm birth, and it can reduce a child’s lifelong earnings, cognitive performance, and other indicators, he said.
A KN95 or N95 mask — the type of high-filtration mask used to prevent COVID infection — can also significantly limit your exposure to soot and ash. If you are in a sensitive group or are worried about air pollution’s health effects, you could consider wearing a mask inside if you have no other way to filter the air.
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Tariffs and the loss of Inflation Reduction Act incentives could realign new power pricing, according to Morgan Stanley.
If you’re putting new power onto the grid right now, the cheapest option is likely solar. Thanks to years of declining equipment costs, generous federal subsidies, and voluntary renewables buyers like big technology companies, much of America’s planned future electricity generation is solar (along with battery storage). Of the 63 gigawatts planned to be added to the grid this year, the Energy Information Administration has estimated that solar will make up about half of it, while solar and storage collectively will make up over 80%.
While there’s no one single price for a megawatt-hour of any given power generation source, a good place to start are estimates from the financial advisory firm Lazard of the levelized cost of energy, which is supposed to allow comparisons between different generation sources. When Lazard put out its updated figures last summer, the average cost of utility solar was $61 per megawatt-hour. For a combined cycle natural gas plant, the most common type of gas generation, the average cost was $76.
But that math may be endangered, according to a new analysis by Morgan Stanley — to the point where solar could lose its competitive cost advantage with new natural gas.
“The cost of power generation is moving higher. The impact of tariffs and potential changes to subsidy support (i.e., IRA) will likely have an inflationary impact on the cost of power,” the analysts wrote to clients.
The team of analysts looked at the impact of both tariffs and the possible reduction or cessation of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits on utility-scale solar costs. According to Morgan Stanley’s figures, about half of the capital expenditure for a utility-scale solar project comes from the hardware, which is mostly the cost of the panels.
While some panels are produced in the United States, there are still significant imports from Southeast Asia, which currently face preliminary tariffs as high as several hundred percent. Those should become permanent later this month when the Department of Commerce completes its investigation into “dumping” by Chinese solar companies that have set up shop in the region.
The imports of these solar panels — some $10 billion in 2024, according to Tim Brightbill, a lawyer for a coalition of domestic solar manufacturers who are pursuing the anti-dumping case — “undercut and really drove down prices in the U.S. solar market,” Brightbill told a group of reporters Thursday. “It forced U.S. producers to significantly reduce their prices,” he said. “The industry was sort of pushed into a cost price squeeze.”
Those days are likely over. Instead, a variety of economic and political factors look to force prices up instead of down for new renewable power.
In a world where capital expenditure for solar projects goes up 5% to 10% — a range the analysts called “reasonably plausible” based on how much solar panels make up of the cost of a project — the Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that to maintain an industry standard investor return in the low-teens, power purchase agreements prices would have to rise to $52 to $57 per megawatt-hour, up from $49 to $54. “In a scenario where tariffs hold and IRA tax credits are eliminated,” the analysts write, those prices might go up as high as $73.
Those PPA prices could seriously degrade the advantage solar has over new natural gas generation, the Morgan Stanley analysts found, despite natural gas seeing its own cost pressures.
For one, there’s the shortage of gas turbines that’s causing higher equipment prices, bringing capital expenditures for a new gas plant up by around 75% in the last few years, the analysts said. Natural gas will also face its own hurdles from tariffs.
After penciling all that out, the Morgan Stanley analysts project that industry standard returns would require PPA prices of about $75 to $80 for natural gas.
You may notice how close that is to the pessimistic forecast on solar pricing.
“While current power market prices are not at levels that would support a new-build of natural gas turbines impacted by a tariff, we believe the co-location opportunity is still viable as a mid-to-high $70/MWh PPA price is still well within the willingness-to-pay for data center customers,” the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote. In other words, data centers that need a lot of power and don’t particularly care about carbon emissions or supporting renewables could end up procuring new gas.
That seems to track what we’re seeing out in the world. In January, Chevron and the investment firm Engine No. 1 announced a joint venture to deploy GE Vernova turbines on site to power data centers.
Natural gas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan’s executive chairman Richard Kinder told analysts Wednesday during the company’s quarterly earnings call that the company had seen a “nice uptick” in demand, “driven in part by the surge in AI and data centers.” The company’s natural gas pipelines president Sital Mody told analysts that Kinder Morgan is “actively pursuing opportunities to provide supply to ultimately feed these upcoming data centers,” and its chief executive Kimberley Dang called out Arizona as a potential market for gas-powered data centers.
So far this year, despite the threat of IRA repeal and protectionist tariffs hanging over the industry (not to mention “Liberation Day” tariffs on inputs like steel), prices paid for solar power have held steady, according to data from LevelTen, a power purchase agreement marketplace.
“Despite policy uncertainty, clean energy deals are moving forward at high volume,” Zach Starsia, LevelTen’s energy marketplace senior director, told me in an email. “There’s more certainty for projects expected to reach [commercial operation] in the next 12 to 16 months. It’s the longer-term, early-stage projects that are two to three years out where cost predictability becomes more difficult. Buyers are acting now to secure favorable pricing and access before tariffs and policy shifts begin to tighten market conditions,” Starsia said.
The company attributed the steady prices to the sector “finding itself on firmer footing following a long period of pandemic-era supply chain woes and an array of policy headwinds,” according to a LevelTen market analysis. While new and scheduled tariffs “are certainly a cause for concern,” the analysis said, the market is “well-attuned” to them due to the long history of solar tariffs since 2012.
“We expect upward pressure on PPA prices through 2025, particularly in technologies and regions exposed to tariffs and supply chain risk,” Starsia said. But he also wrote, perhaps optimistically, “The window is still open for prepared buyers to secure strong deals before price shifts fully take hold.”
Plus, what a Texas energy veteran thinks is behind the surprising turn against solar and wind.
I couldn’t have a single conversation with a developer this week without talking about Texas.
In case you’re unaware, the Texas Senate two days ago passed legislation — SB 819 — that would require all solar and wind projects over 10 megawatts to receive a certification from the state Public Utilities Commission — a process fossil fuel generation doesn’t have to go through. The bill, which one renewables group CEO testified would “kill” the industry in Texas, was approved by the legislature’s GOP majority despite a large number of landowners and ranchers testifying against the bill, an ongoing solar and wind boom in the state, and a need to quickly provide energy to Texas’ growing number of data centers and battery manufacturing facilities.
But that’s not all: On the same day, the Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee approved a bill — SB 715 — that would target solar and wind by requiring generation facilities to be able to produce power whenever called upon by grid operators or otherwise pay a fine. Critics of the bill, which as written does not differentiate between new and existing facilities, say it could constrain the growth of Texas’ energy grid, not to mention impose penalties on solar and wind facilities that lack sufficient energy storage on site.
Renewable energy trades are in freak-out mode, mobilizing to try and scuttlebutt bills that could stifle what otherwise would be a perfect state for the sector. As we’ve previously explained, a big reason why Texas is so good for development is because, despite its ruby red nature, there is scant regulation letting towns or counties get in the way of energy development generally.
Seeking to best understand why anti-renewables bills are sailing through the Lone Star State, I phoned Doug Lewin, a Texas energy sector veteran, on the morning of the votes in the Texas Senate. Lewin said he believes that unlike other circumstances we’ve written about, like Oklahoma and Arizona, there really isn’t a groundswell of Texans against renewable energy development. This aligns with our data in Heatmap Pro, which shows 76% of counties being more welcoming than average to a utility-scale wind or solar farm. This is seen even in the author of the 24/7 power bill – state Senator Kevin Sparks – who represents the city of Midland, which is in a county that Heatmap Pro modeling indicates has a low risk of opposition. The Midland area is home to several wind and solar projects; German renewables giant RWE last month announced it would expand into the county to power oil and gas extraction with renewables.
But Lewin told me there’s another factor: He believes the legislation is largely motivated by legislators’ conservative voters suffering from a “misinformation” and “algorithm” problem. It’s their information diets, he believes, which are producing fears about the environmental impacts of developing renewable energy.
“He’s actively working against the interests of his district,” Lewin said of Sparks. “It’s algorithms. I don’t know what folks think is going on. People are just getting a lot of bad information.”
One prominent example came from a hailstorm during Hurricane Uri last year. Ice rocks described like golfballs rained down upon south-east Texas, striking, among other things, a utility-scale solar farm called Fighting Jays overseen by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The incident went viral on Facebook and was seized upon by large conservative advocacy organizations including the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
What’s next? Honestly, the only thing standing between these bills and becoming law is a sliver of hope in the renewables world that the millions of dollars flowing into Texas House members’ districts via project investments and tax benefits outweigh the conservative cultural animus against their product. But if the past is prologue, things aren’t looking great.
And more of the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Westchester County, N.Y. – Residents in Yonkers are pressuring city officials to renew a moratorium on battery storage before it expires in July.
2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Sorry Atlantic Shores, but you’re not getting your EPA permit back.
3. St Clair County, Michigan – We may soon have what appears to be the first-ever county health regulations targeting renewable energy.
4. Freeborn County, Minnesota – Officials in this county have rejected a Midwater Energy Storage battery storage project citing concerns about fires.
5. Little River County, Arkansas – A petition circulating in this county would put the tax abatement for a NextEra solar project up for a vote county-wide.
6. Van Zandt County, Texas – Officials in this county have reportedly succeeded in getting a court to impose a restraining order against Taaleri Energy to halt the Amador battery storage project.
7. Gillespie County, Texas – Peregrine Energy’s battery storage proposal in the rural town of Harper is also facing a mounting local outcry.
8. Churchill County, Nevada – Battery storage might be good for Nevada mining, but we have what appears to be our first sign of revolt against the technology in the state.