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Fervo isn’t the only big IPO news. General Fusion, the Canadian fusion energy startup TechCrunch describes as “struggling,” announced plans for a $1 billion reverse merger deal to go public on the Nasdaq. The move comes almost exactly a month after President Donald Trump’s social media company, the parent firm of Truth Social, inked a deal to merge with the fusion startup TAE Technologies and create the first publicly-traded fusion company in the U.S. Analysts I spoke to about the deal called it “flabberghasting,” and warned that TAE’s technology represented a more complex and dubious approach to commercializing fusion than that taken by rival companies such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Still, the IPO deals highlight the growing excitement over progress on generating power from a technology long mocked as the energy source of tomorrow that always will be. As Heatmap’s Katie Brigham artfully put it in 2024, “it is finally, possibly, almost time for fusion.”
General Motors plans to move manufacturing of the next generation of its Buick Envision SUV from China to the U.S. in two years and end production of the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt. The Detroit auto giant makes just one of its four SUV models in the U.S., leaving the cars vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs. The worst hit was the Envision, which is currently built in China. Starting in 2028, the latest version of the Envision will be produced in Kansas, taking over the assembly line that is currently churning out the Bolt.
It's a blow to GM's electric vehicle line. Chevy just brought back the Bolt in response to high demand after initially canceling production in 2023, because as Andrew Moseman put it in Heatmap, it's “the cheap EV we've needed all along.” While Chevy had always framed the return as a limited run, it was not previously clear how limited that would be.
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The Department of Energy said Thursday its newly rebranded Office of Energy Dominance Finance, formerly the Loan Programs Office, is “restructuring, revising, or eliminating more than $83 billion in Green New Scam loans and conditional commitments.” The move comes after “an exhaustive first-year review” of the $104 billion in principal loan obligations the Biden administration shelled out, including $85 billion the Trump administration accused of being “rushed out the door in the final months after Election Day.” In a statement, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said the changes are meant to “ensure the responsible investment of taxpayer dollars.” While it’s not yet clear which projects are affected, the agency said the EDF eliminated about $9.5 billion in support for wind and solar projects and redirected that funding to natural gas and nuclear energy. But as Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo noted last night, the Energy Department hasn’t yet said which loans are set to be canceled as part of the latest cuts. The announcement may include loans that have already been canceled or restructured.
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If you know anything about surging electricity demand, you’re likely to finger a single culprit: data centers. But worldwide, air conditioning dwarfs data centers as a demand driver. And in California, electric vehicles are on pace to edge out data centers as a bigger driver of peak demand on the grid. That’s according to a new report from the California Energy Commission. Just look at this chart:
A chart showing nearly twice as much expected load growth from electric vehicles as from data centers.CEC
As the Golden State tries to get a grip on its electricity system, Representative Ro Khanna, the progressive Silicon Valley congressman often discussed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has doubled down on his calls to break up the state’s largest utility. On Thursday, Khanna posted on X that PG&E “should be broken up and owned by customers, not shareholders. They are ripping off Californians by buying off politicians in Sacramento.” The Democrat has been calling for PG&E’s demise since at least 2019, when the utility was on the hook for billions of dollars in damages from a wildfire sparked by its equipment. But the idea hasn’t exactly caught on.
New energy technologies such as batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines are driving demand for minerals and spurring a controversial push for new mines on virgin lands. But a new study by researchers at the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute found that a production boom is already underway at existing mines. The peer-reviewed paper, which is the first comprehensive global analysis of brownfield mining expansion, found that existing mines are growing in size and scale. Just because the mines are already there doesn’t mean the new production doesn’t come with some social cost. Nearly 78% of the 366 mines analyzed in the study “are located in areas facing multiple high-risk socioeconomic conditions, including weak governance, poor corruption control, and limited press freedom,” the study found.
The Department of the Interior has a new coal mascot. On Thursday, the agency posted an animated picture of a cartoonish, rosy-cheeked, chicken nugget-shaped lump of coal clad in a yellow hardhat and construction gear. His name? Coalie. The idea isn’t original. Australia’s coal-mining trade group rolled out an almost identical mascot a few years ago — same anthropomorphic lump of coal, same yellow attire. The only difference? His name was Hector, and he wore glasses.
Zanskar's drilling site in northern Nevada. Zanskar
Geothermal startups had a big day on Wednesday. Zanskar, a company that’s using artificial intelligence to find untapped conventional geothermal resources, raised $115 million in a Series C round. The Salt Lake City-based company — which experts in Heatmap's Insider Survey identified as one of the most promising climate tech startups operating today — is looking to build its first power plants. “With this funding, we have a six power plant execution plan ahead of us in the next three, four years,” Diego D’Sola, Zanskar’s head of finance, told Heatmap’s Katie Brigham. This, he estimates, will generate over $100 million of revenue by the end of the decade, and “unlock a multi-gigawatt pipeline behind that.”
Later on Tuesday, Sage Geosystems, a next-generation geothermal startup using fracking technology to harness the Earth’s heat for energy in places that don’t have conventional resources, announced it had raised $97 million in a Series B. The financing rounds highlight the growing excitement over geothermal energy. If you want a refresher on how it works, Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin has a sharp explainer here.
Stegra, the Swedish startup racing to build the world’s first large green steel mill near the Arctic Circle, has recently faced troubles as project costs and delays forced the company to raise over $1 billion in new financing. But last week, Stegra landed a major new customer, marking what Canary Media called “a step forward for the beleaguered project.” A subsidiary of the German industrial giant Thyssenkrupp agreed to buy a certain type of steel from Stegra’s plant, which is set to start operations next year. Thyssenkrupp Materials Services said it would buy tonnages in the “high-six-digit range” of “non-prime” steel, a version of the metal that doesn’t meet the high standards for certain uses but remains strong and durable enough for other industrial applications.
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For years, Tesla’s mission statement has captured its focus on building electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries: “Accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Now, however, billionaire Elon Musk’s manufacturing giant has broadened its pitch. The company’s new mission statement, announced on X, reads: “Building a world of amazing abundance.” The change reflects a wider shift in the cultural discourse around the transition to new energy and transportation technologies. Even experts polled in our Insiders Survey want to ditch “climate change” as a term. The fatigue was striking coming from the very scientists, policymakers, and activists working to defend against the effects of human-caused temperature rise and decarbonize the global economy.That dynamic has fueled the push to refocus rhetoric on the promise of cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant technological luxuries — a concept Tesla appears to be tapping into now. It may be time for a change. As Matthew wrote in September, Tesla’s market share hit an all-time low last year.
In yesterday’s newsletter, I told you that the Tokyo Electric Power Company had delayed the restart of the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power station in western Japan over an alarm malfunction. It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly Japan’s state-owned utility would clear up the issue. It turns out, pretty quickly. The pause lasted just 24 hours before Tepco brought Unit 6 of the seven-reactor facility back online, NucNet reported.
Things are getting steamy in the frigid waters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay. New research from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute found that a small population of beluga whales survive the long haul by mating with multiple partners over several years. It’s not just the males finding multiple female partners, as is the case with some other mammals. The study found that both males and females mated with multiple partners over several years. “What makes this study so thrilling is that it upends our long-standing assumptions about this Arctic species,” Greg O’Corry-Crowe, the research professor who authored the study, said in a press release. “It’s a striking reminder that female choice can be just as influential in shaping reproductive success as the often-highlighted battles of male-male competition. Such strategies highlight the subtle, yet powerful ways in which females exert control over the next generation, shaping the evolutionary trajectory of the species.”
