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Current conditions: A freak hail storm hit Abu Dhabi • Beaches in Trinidad and Tobago are black after a massive oil spill • It will be another wet week in California.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Study: Many migratory species face extinction
One in five migratory species are at risk of extinction, and humans are mostly to blame, according to a grim new United Nations report. The State of the World’s MIgratory Species report from the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (CMS) is the first to study the many creatures – from elephants to butterflies to birds – that travel thousands of miles every year to breed, eat, or find new climates. The report examined 1,189 of these species and found some 44% are in population decline. Perhaps the most shocking takeaway is the dire state of the world’s migratory fish species: Ninety-seven percent are facing extinction. Migratory reptiles are also in trouble, with 70% threatened. Overexploitation and habitat loss due to human activity are the largest pressures contributing to these losses. “These animals are, first and foremost, part of the ecosystems where they’re found,” CMS executive secretary Amy Fraenkel told CNN. “And we have a lot of evidence showing that if you remove these species, if they decline, it will have impacts on the ecosystems where they’re found, and not in a positive way.” Protecting migrating animals can be a challenge because it requires cross-border cooperation.
2. Another big U.S. oil merger will create Permian Basin drilling giant
Diamondback Energy announced a $26 billion deal to buy Endeavor Energy Resources, the largest private oil company in America’s biggest oil field, the Permian Basin. The deal catapults Diamondback to the third spot on the list of the region’s largest oil and gas producers. This is “the latest in a flurry of large-scale merger and acquisition activity in the U.S. shale patch as companies look to snap up the best remaining drilling acreage,” explained the Financial Times. Last year saw similar acquisitions targeting the region by ExxonMobil and Chevron. Together Diamondback and Endeavor will pump the equivalent of 816,000 barrels of oil per day, Reutersreported.
3. Study raises new concerns about ocean current tipping point
A new study suggests the “conveyor belt” of Atlantic Ocean currents that sends warm water north and cold water south is in danger of collapse. Climate researchers have long worried that global warming could someday cause the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to slow or stop. This would trigger major shifts in regional climates and devastate ecosystems, but such an event has always been hard to predict, and most forecasts saw it occuring centuries in the future, if at all. For this new study, researchers used a supercomputer to run through potential warming scenarios and were able to trigger a collapse in the model AMOC, confirming there is indeed a point at which the system breaks down. While the team couldn’t pinpoint when this collapse could happen, they say the findings suggest “we are moving in the direction of the tipping point.” If AMOC were to shut down, parts of Europe, North America, and Asia could see temperatures drop, the southern hemisphere could warm, and Atlantic sea levels could rise by a meter, all within a short timespan that would make adaptation almost impossible, The Guardianreported.
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4. John Deere is going electric
Tractor company John Deere plans to start making and selling fully electric farm and construction equipment by 2026, Yale Climate Connections reported. The company said its electric lineup will give farmers more flexibility and help them lower costs. “They can manage yield and plant health on a more frequent basis; enabled by the cost of that pass being so low. They are no longer exposed to fuel costs. Producers can focus on the health of the plants/animals, and truly optimize the material inputs such as fertilizers, chemicals, and feeds.” It mentions reduced CO2 emissions, too, but only briefly, suggesting John Deere thinks the key to encouraging farmers to swap out their legacy equipment is to focus on operational improvements rather than environmental benefits.
5. Twisters trailer debuts
The first trailer for the disaster film Twisters debuted during the Super Bowl last night. The film, which hits theaters in July, isn’t a remake of the 1996 Twister, but more of a follow up. It promises to be just as nightmare-inducing, especially given how extreme weather has become more common in the years since the first film was released. Back in ‘96, “‘climate change’ didn’t quite carry the very real, very doom-laden weight that it does now,” wrote Cheryl Eddy at Gizmodo. “Is Twisters’ apocalyptic weather even in the realm of science fiction anymore?”
THE KICKER
California is considering introducing an
electric bike license for riders who do not already have a regular driver’s license. It would require e-bike drivers to take a course, pass a test, and get a state ID.
Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.
Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.
According to Heatmap Pro’s proprietary modeling of local opinion around battery storage, there are likely twice as many strong opponents than strong supporters in the area:
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Yesterday, leaders in the Queens community of Hempstead enacted a year-long ban on BESS for at least a year after GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, other local politicians, and a slew of aggrieved residents testified in favor of a moratorium. The day before, officials in the Long Island town of Southampton said at a public meeting they were ready to extend their battery storage ban until they enshrined a more restrictive development code – even as many energy companies testified against doing so, including NineDot and solar plus storage developer Key Capture Energy. Yonkers also recently extended its own battery moratorium.
This flurry of activity follows the Moss Landing battery plant fire in California, a rather exceptional event caused by tech that was extremely old and a battery chemistry that is no longer popular in the sector. But opponents of battery storage don’t care – they’re telling their friends to stop the community from becoming the next Moss Landing. The longer this goes on without a fulsome, strident response from the industry, the more communities may rally against them. Making matters even worse, as I explained in The Fight earlier this year, we’re seeing battery fire concerns impact solar projects too.
“This is a huge problem for solar. If [fires] start regularly happening, communities are going to say hey, you can’t put that there,” Derek Chase, CEO of battery fire smoke detection tech company OnSight Technologies, told me at Intersolar this week. “It’s going to be really detrimental.”
I’ve long worried New York City in particular may be a powder keg for the battery storage sector given its omnipresence as a popular media environment. If it happens in New York, the rest of the world learns about it.
I feel like the power of the New York media environment is not lost on Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella, a de facto leader of the anti-BESS movement in the boroughs. Last fall I interviewed Fossella, whose rhetorical strategy often leans on painting Staten Island as an overburdened community. (At least 13 battery storage projects have been in the works in Staten Island according to recent reporting. Fossella claims that is far more than any amount proposed elsewhere in the city.) He often points to battery blazes that happen elsewhere in the country, as well as fears about lithium-ion scooters that have caught fire. His goal is to enact very large setback distance requirements for battery storage, at a minimum.
“You can still put them throughout the city but you can’t put them next to people’s homes – what happens if one of these goes on fire next to a gas station,” he told me at the time, chalking the wider city government’s reluctance to capitulate on batteries to a “political problem.”
Well, I’m going to hold my breath for the real political problem in waiting – the inevitable backlash that happens when Mallitokis, D’Esposito, and others take this fight to Congress and the national stage. I bet that’s probably why American Clean Power just sent me a notice for a press briefing on battery safety next week …
1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.
County officials this week issued a public notice encouraging all residents to consider the economic impacts of taking farmland out of use to build solar farms.
“The Queen Anne’s County Commissioners are concerned that large-scale conversion of farmland to solar energy facilities may impact the long-term viability of agriculture in the county and surrounding region,” read the notice, which told anyone approached by a solar company about their land to immediately consult an attorney and think about these “key considerations.”
“As more farmland is transitioned to solar use, the demand for these agricultural support services diminishes. If enough land is taken out of production, it could create serious challenges for those who wish to continue farming.”
It’s not immediately clear whether this was related to a specific project or an overall rise in renewables development that’s happening in the county. But there’s a clear trend going on. Officials said in an accompanying press release that officials in neighboring Caroline County sent a similar notice to property owners. And it seems Worcester County did something similar last month.
2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.
The staff report states: “Opposition to the project has been long-standing and unwavering, which is a strong measure of the local opposition to the project. While some local opposition is not uncommon in many power generation siting projects, when observing and documenting considerable opposition filed in this docket, staff recognizes that in this proceeding the opposition has been especially prominent and overwhelmingly one-sided from the local government agencies.”
What comes next for Grange Solar? The OPSB will ultimately have to vote on whether to side with its staff, though it rarely votes against. Open Road Renewables will then have the right to appeal this project. It feels unlikely that it’ll meet the company’s 2026 construction start plan.
3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.
At a county commission hearing this week, Bandera Commissioner Jack Moseley told a room of anti-solar residents that even though he wanted to stop the project, there was no role for him to do so. That’s because, as we explained in our deep dive on Rio Lago, Texas’ state laws are quite weak on local control around solar.
“I don’t want it here. I don’t think any of these commissioners want it here, and I don’t think there’s anyone in this room that wants it here. But, we the County cannot stop it,” Moseley said, according to local news outlet Bandera Bulletin.
1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.
Meanwhile it appears the Agriculture Department is still holding onto money for renewables development under the Rural Energy for America Program.
2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.
Johnson had said last year he wanted to take a “scalpel” to the IRA, emphasizing a surgical approach amid pushback from more moderate members of his caucus. But yesterday he told reporters on the Hill that any attempt at repeal will “be somewhere between a scalpel and a sledgehammer.”
3. Endangerment in danger – The EPA is reportedly urging the White House to back reversing its 2009 “endangerment” finding on air pollutants and climate change, a linchpin in the agency’s overall CO2 and climate regulatory scheme.
Undoing the endangerment finding would legally be quite tricky but has the capacity to upend the marketplace’s confidence in almost two decades of energy and air pollution regulation that has proven a tailwind for renewables.
Proportion of species classified in risk areas
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