Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Economy

A Quick Roundup of This Week’s DOE Funding News

On solar panel factories, heat pumps, and grid resilience

A Quick Roundup of This Week’s DOE Funding News
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Japan has issued its first-ever “megaquake” caution after a temblor rattled its southern coast yesterday • The remnants of Tropical Storm Debby could bring tornadoes to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast • India’s record heat has been mentioned at least 80 times in quarterly earnings calls.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Solar panel company Qcells secures $1.45 billion DOE loan

The Biden administration announced yesterday a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of up to $1.45 billion for solar panel maker Qcells to support the construction of the company’s new manufacturing facility in Cartersville, Georgia. The plant would be Qcell’s second in Georgia, but the largest of its kind in the U.S., churning out solar panel components like silicon ingots and wafers, as well as finished solar panels. Its completion will “re-establish critical parts of the domestic solar supply chain and reinforce the United States’ status as a global clean energy leader,” the Department of Energy said in a statement. The plant will create 1,950 jobs, and is expected to make 3.3 gigawatts of panels each year, enough to power half a million homes. And it will be eligible for the IRA’s clean-energy tax credits.

In other government funding news this week, the DOE announced $10.2 million to advance the “cost effective and environmentally responsible” production of critical minerals and materials in the U.S., $85 million to boost domestic heat pump manufacturing, and $2.2 billion to shore up the grid.

2. Glacial dam outburst floods Alaska’s capital

Alaska’s capital of Juneau has been inundated by flooding from a glacial dam outburst this week. More than 100 homes have been damaged in the Mendenhall Valley after the Suicide Basin, which holds meltwater from Suicide Glacier, began to overflow on August 1 and sent water pouring into the Mendenhall River. Climate change is melting glaciers, putting nearby communities in danger. Recent research shows the number of glacial lakes has grown by more than 50% since 1990, and more than 15 million people globally are at risk.

Facebook/Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management

3. Canadian nuclear fusion firm gets government backing

Canadian nuclear fusion company General Fusion this week raised about $14.6 million in a Series F funding round from two government agencies, the Business Development Bank of Canada and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. The injection brings the company’s funding total to more than $320 million, with backers including Jeff Bezos. As Bloombergexplained, General Fusion “uses mechanically driven pistons to compress a cloud of plasma as a means to generate energy,” and the company said this money will help it move toward compressing plasmas at large scale, which is “a key milestone on our path to reach transformational results for commercialization.”

4. L.A. could soon get an air taxi network

California-based eVTOL developer Archer Aviation is planning an “air mobility network” that will bring flying electric taxis to Los Angeles as early as 2026. Customers would be able to skip the L.A. traffic by hopping into one of Archer’s Midnight aircraft and travelling in a matter of minutes to one of the company’s vertiports, which will be located near various popular destinations including LAX, USC, and perhaps the SoFi Stadium. Here’s what the network could look like:

Archer Aviation

The Midnight electric aircraft can carry four passengers at a time and travel at 150 mph. The company recently announced plans for a similar network in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stellantis is planning to help Archer ramp up production of the Midnight aircraft by covering some $370 million in labor-related costs.

5. Study reveals how past volcanic eruptions affected climate, plants

A new study published in the journal Science examines how the Earth’s plants and carbon cycle have responded in the past to climate change caused by huge releases in carbon dioxide from volcanic activity. They find that the severity of the fallout depended on how quickly the Earth could sequester the carbon and remove it from the atmosphere, but also how well plants could adapt to the resulting temperature changes. After past volcanic eruptions, some plant species evolved to survive, some migrated to cooler climates, but others were wiped out entirely. The authors found that damages to vegetation made global warming worse in the past. “This study, in my perspective, serves as a ‘wake-up call’ for the global community,” said co-author Loïc Pellissier, a professor of ecosystems and landscape evolution at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research. “We are currently releasing greenhouse gases at a faster rate than any previous volcanic event. We are also the primary cause of global deforestation, which strongly reduces the ability of natural ecosystems to regulate the climate.”

THE KICKER

Satellite data suggests deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is now at its lowest levels since 2016.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Politics

AM Briefing: Climate Grants Terminated

On Lee Zeldin’s announcement, coal’s decline, and Trump’s Tesla promo

The EPA’s $20 Billion Climate Grants Have Been Terminated
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Alaska just had its third-warmest winter on record • Spain’s four-year drought is nearing an end • Another atmospheric river is bearing down on the West Coast, triggering evacuation warnings around Los Angeles’ burn scars.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Zeldin terminates $20 billion in climate grants

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said yesterday he had terminated $20 billion in congressionally-approved climate change and clean energy grants “following a comprehensive review and consistent with multiple ongoing independent federal investigations into programmatic fraud, waste, abuse and conflicts of interest.”

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Climate

What the NOAA Layoffs Are Doing to Climate Science

And how ordinary Americans will pay the price.

A hand in the NOAA logo.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

No one seems to know exactly how many employees have been laid off from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — or, for that matter, what offices those employees worked at, what jobs they held, or what regions of the country will be impacted by their absence. We do know that it was a lot of people; about 10% of the roughly 13,000 people who worked at the agency have left since Donald Trump took office, either because they were among the 800 or so probationary employees to be fired late last month or because they resigned.

“I don’t have the specifics as to which offices, or how many people from specific geographic areas, but I will reiterate that every one of the six [NOAA] line offices and 11 of the staff offices — think of the General Counsel’s Office or the Legislative Affairs Office — all 11 of those staff offices have suffered terminations,” Rick Spinrad, who served as the NOAA administrator under President Joe Biden, told reporters in a late February press call. (At least a few of the NOAA employees who were laid off have since been brought back.)

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Podcast

How Trump Has All But Halted Offshore Wind

Rob and Jesse talk with Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman.

Offshore wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s second term has now entered its second month. His administration is doing much to slow down renewables, and everything it can to slow down offshore wind. Jael Holzman is a senior reporter at Heatmap and the author of our newsletter, “The Fight,” about local battles over renewable permitting around the country.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk to Jael about the bleak outlook for offshore wind, the use of presidential authority to impede energy development, and why solar has been spared — so far. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue