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Constellation Energy inked the deal, but the whole industry stands to benefit.
After Three Mile Island, what’s next?
That’s the question the nuclear industry and those who follow it were asking after news broke Friday that Constellation Energy was planning to reboot the facility’s Unit 1, which shut down in 2019. The deal is being anchored by Microsoft, which will purchase the power in order to balance out the emissions generated by its facilities in the PJM Interconnection, the multi-state power market that includes Pennsylvania. The plant is expected to be operational by 2028, Constellation said, and will be called the Crane Clean Energy Center, in honor of the company's former chief executive.
The demand for non-carbon-emitting power — and all power — has grown since Unit 1 closed and is expected to continue to in the future, especially as tech companies like Microsoft seek to build more datacenters while complying with their pledges to power their operations without greenhouse gas emissions.
The days of nuclear power plants shuttering not because of old age, safety concerns, or local opposition, but because of the economics of subsidized wind and solar and cheap natural gas, are likely over. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois all provided subsidies to their state’s nuclear fleet as plants were threatened with closure. California’s Diablo Canyon plant has seen its decommissioning delayed and received federal aid to help stay open. At a time when states representing a big chunk of US power consumption have aggressive emissions reduction goals and worries about power reliability, money is often easily found to keep nuclear plants open.
And now much of that cash might be coming from the private sector, specifically technology companies and independent power producers like Constellation.
“What we’re seeing is the fruits of previous labors coupled with the first-time-in-a-generation demand signals we had not yet seen,” Brett Rampal, a senior director at Veriten, an energy advisory company, told me.
These companies want the 24/7 carbon-free power that nuclear can uniquely provide. The federal government and several state capitals are also committed to bolstering the economics of America’s largest non-greenhouse-gas emitting, firm power source.
The Inflation Reduction Act contains considerable subsidies for both investing in and producing nuclear energy, as well as tools to finance nuclear power.
If history is any indication, having public and corporate policy rowing in the same direction can provide a huge boost for clean energy. For wind and solar, the two biggest demand boosters pulling forward their adoption has been technology companies wanting to buy clean power and federal subsidies for their construction and operation.
The structure Microsoft is using to purchase this power, the corporate power purchase agreement, was pioneered by Google in the late 2000s as a way for technology companies to support the development of clear power even when they couldn’t directly consume it. Now these tools are being used to support nuclear power. Constellation said Friday that the deal was the largest single power purchase agreement in history. According to figures worked out by Rampal, the deal will lead to some 135 terawatt-hours of generation over 20 years (a bit short of the annual electricity generation of Argentina), generating some $13.5 billion of revenue.
“Nobody would be moving forward with these projects,” explained Rampal, without tax credits or “extremely favorable loan support from the Loans Program Office.”
The other shuttered nuclear plant looking to restart, Michigan’s Palisades, has a $1.5 billion loan guarantee from the LPO.
“Constellation will be spending $1.6 billion of its own money to restart the plant – no state or federal aid. We may look at whether to seek a DOE loan for some of the financing, but that is not a given and not needed to make the project work. And even in that scenario, all the money is paid back in full. It’s just a slightly better interest rate,” Paul Adams, a Constellation spokesman, told me.
“The IRA contained nuclear production tax credits, which any nuclear plant is eligible for. The Crane Clean Energy Centerwould be no different once it is up and operating. That tax credit simply provides a floor price, in essence, to support nuclear production,” Adams said.
Almost immediately after the deal was announced attention turned to the Duane Arnold Energy Center plant in Iowa, which shut down in 2020 but whose owner, NextEra, has said could be a candidate for being relaunched.
After that, Rampal said, “there are tons of conversations around power uprates,” which is when nuclear plant operators install new equipment or alter the operation of existing plants to make them more powerful.
According to one study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Koroush Shirvan, uprates could increase the capacity of America’s nuclear fleet by 50%. Actual uprates tend to be far more modest (and the paper acknowledges such dramatic uprates “are aspirational and may not be practical”). The last 10 uprates have averaged 1.6%, according to data collected by the Nuclear Energy Institute.
“Many more nuclear plants could be more aggressive with uprates. There’s technology out there that could produce more power,” Mark Nelson, managing director at Radiant Energy Group, told me.
The Loan Program Office can fund these upgrades and they will benefit from tax credits alongside other existing nuclear plants.
Microsoft is not the first technology company to get into the nuclear game, although many observers have long suspected it would. Alongside Google and Nucor, the company has committed to nurturing so-called clean-firm generation to help power operations on a 24/7 basis in a way that existing renewable generation cannot. The company has made several notable hires of nuclear industry veterans in the past few years.
“There’s nowhere in the USA where you can suddenly get power needed by Microsoft while making it additional,” besides bringing new nuclear power onto the grid, Nelson told me, referring to the concept that to fully prevent carbon emissions from new corporate activity, the non-carbon-emitting energy acquired has to be new to the grid. “Not just 24/7, but 24/7 at one location.”
Microsoft’s nuclear deal is also the second major one inked by a technology company just this year. Amazon purchased a data center site co-located at another Pennsylvania nuclear plant in March. That plan to link up a data center with the Susquehanna nuclear power plant has been controversial as it is “behind-the-meter,” meaning it would be powering Amazon’s facility directly, not providing power to the grid under a power purchase agreement like Microsoft will be doing with Constellation. Some argue it would still shift costs to others on the grid. The Amazon deal also does not provide any new clean power, it simply reallocates it to a big customer.
But there are only so many existing nuclear power plants that could uprate or recently-shut plants that could restart, but whatever new nuclear power does come online, there will likely be a technology company eager to scoop it up.
“We need to stamp out nuclear plants of designs that work now and lock in new construction,” Nelson told me. “We’re in a time of extreme scarcity.”
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The fundamentals are the same — it’s the tone that’s changed.
At some point in the past month, the hydrogen fuel cell developer Plug Power updated its website. Beneath a carousel explaining the hydrogen ecosystem and solutions for transporting fuel, the company’s home page now contains a section titled “Hydrogen at Work.”
“Hydrogen is key to energy independence, providing clean, reliable power while reducing reliance on imported fuels,” the text in this new box reads. “Plug’s hydrogen and fuel cell solutions strengthen the energy grid and enhance national security, positioning the U.S. as a leader in the global energy transition.”
It is fairly ordinary website copy, but to a keen reader, the text jumps out as an obvious Trump 2.0 tell. Plug Power — like many green economy companies — has pivoted to meet the political and economic moment, where “energy independence” and “energy dominance” are in and “climate” and “sustainability” are out.
“I am actually shocked every time I look at the website of a climate tech company that still uses the language from 12 months ago, from four months ago — that doesn’t do them any good,” Peter Atanasoff, the managing director and vice president of Scratch Media and Marketing, which helps B2B technology companies and climate tech businesses achieve growth and recognition, told me.
The shift in language is more significant than just brands chasing the latest buzzwords.
The first Trump administration saw broad-based pushback from the business community against Trump’s more inflammatory positions, especially by consumer-facing brands that played to the pussy hat-wearing, brunch-and-protest attitudes of the time. The CEOs of Facebook (now Meta), Nike, and Google issued statements of disappointment when the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk even dropped out of the president’s business council over the decision. It was, needless to say, a very different time.
During Trump’s second term, he promised “retribution.” Many of the more moderate voices from his first administration are long gone, and there’s a palpable fear among nonprofits and businesses of drawing the wrong kind of attention from Washington, losing grant funding for saying the wrong thing. “The real trigger” for resulting differences in branding between the first and second Trump administrations has been “the change of tone and change of economic policy,” Atanasoff told me. “It is explicit opposition to any of these technologies."
The administration has launched an all-out assault not just on climate policy, but also on the very language of the energy transition. In a February memo obtained by E&E News, the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed 34 words to be erased from official documentation, including “global warming,” “carbon footprint,” “net zero,” and even “green.” As I’ve covered for Heatmap, farmers applying for Department of Agriculture grants have been encouraged to resubmit proposals with climate-focused language removed and “refocus … on expanding American energy production.” And at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists have quickly learned to pivot to talking about “air pollution” rather than emissions, contending with a banned-words list of their own.
Lobbyists and clean energy companies that want to be in the administration’s good graces have adapted, as well. That has changed the tenor of green business at large. Alexander Bryden, who runs the Washington, D.C. office of Browning Environmental Communications, told me over email that tweaking brand language is “typical after any change of administration, particularly when there are significant shifts in policy.” But especially for organizations in the public eye, “it’s more important than ever to highlight the historic and potential economic benefits of environmental solutions — and show how they are supported by, and benefit, people across the political spectrum.”
The actual fundamentals of green business haven’t changed, though. On the contrary, in the first quarter of 2025, venture capitalists and private equity firms invested more than $5 billion in climate tech startups in the U.S., a 65% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to PitchBook data. While there are certainly obstacles like supply chain uncertainty and tariffs to contend with, especially for clean energy manufacturing, on the whole “it’s still a great time to start a climate startup,” Tommy Leep, the founder of the software-focused venture firm Jetstream, told my colleague Katie Brigham last November. His caveat? “Just don’t call it a climate startup.”
Roger Ballentine, the president of the management consulting service Green Strategies and the chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Bill Clinton, explained this thinking to me. “It’s what I refer to as climate capitalism, which is the realization that by incorporating climate change and its risks and opportunities into your business strategy, you’re actually going to be a more successful, more profitable, and more competitive company,” he said. Even with the recent economic turbulence, “That hasn’t changed. That’s not going to change.”
Where you do see adjustments, however, is “around the edges,” per Ballentine. Companies are attempting to match the frequency of the administration and, in turn, the broader policy ecosystem — a frequency that tends to be aggressive, assertive, and heavy on words like “dominance” and “security.” It might also take the form of decreasing the volume at which companies had previously shouted their climate bona fides.
Anya Nelson, the senior vice president of public relations at Scratch M+M, said her team has also advised touting “American-made production” in brand messaging, and reframing copy to focus on “the positive impacts and immediate business benefits” of the companies, rather than more idealistic messaging about climate goals that may have had stronger resonance during the Biden administration.
At this point, you may have noticed that I haven’t quoted any corporate brand officers. That’s not because I didn’t try to talk to any. (Even Plug Power, my example at the beginning of this story, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the change in their messaging.) Though the sudden prevalence of terms like “energy dominance” becomes conspicuous once you start to look for them, no one wants to draw the wrong kind of attention from the administration. It’s part of a greater trend of clamming up that my colleagues and I have experienced across sectors in our reporting, and at a time when even the word “green” can give you a black mark, I can’t say I don’t understand.
Ballentine, the Green Strategies president, dismissed reading too much into how language itself changes under President Trump. “If yesterday a new technology company was touting itself as a climate solution, and now it’s touting itself as a way to achieve energy dominance — I don’t care,” he said.
His thinking was more pragmatic. “Good business remains good business,” Ballentine went on. “Around the edges, will things change? Yes. General belt tightening? Yes. Fundamental change of direction? No.”
It might sound like branding agencies are encouraging companies to “play along” with the administration, but Nelson of Scratch M+M stressed that wasn’t what she was trying to say. At the end of the day, “your end goal is to be a viable company, right?” she said. “To be a thriving company that is going to change the world, first and foremost, you need to make sure you don’t go out of business.” The message might be more accurately summarized as “read the room.”
A report from Heatmap’s San Francisco Climate Week event with Tom Steyer.
Last Thursday at San Francisco Climate Week, Heatmap hosted an event with a lineup of industry leaders and experts to discuss the most promising up-and-coming climate tech innovations amidst a backdrop of tariff and tax credit uncertainty.
Guests at Heatmap's event, Climate Tech's Next Winners.Sean Vranizan
First up, Heatmap executive editor Robinson Meyer sat down with Tom Steyer, the billionaire investor and co-founder of Galvanize Climate Solutions, to explore the most promising climate technologies to scale. “No one's going to adopt new technologies to be nice,” Steyer noted. “They're gonna adopt new technologies because they're better, because they're a better deal, because they're cheaper or in some ways solve a pain point for the customer.” Steyer went on to emphasize that there is at least one “transformational and disruptive” idea for every six verticals in the climate industry — for example, measuring carbon sequestration in nature with machine learning andAI, a concept that was “literally unimaginable 5 years ago.”
Tom Steyer and Robinson Meyer.Sean Vranizan
As for the Trump-sized elephant in the room, Steyer encouraged climate tech startups to focus on “good leadership” as well as the willingness to adapt in this uncertain moment. “You’re gonna have hard times, and the world is going to change, and you’re going to have to figure out what to do,“ he said. Steyer also noted that all Americans, not only those working in climate tech, should understand the energy transition as a background condition of their careers. “If you want to be a screenwriter (...) be a screenwriter. But it’s really important that you put [the energy transition] into your screenwriting. If you‘re a banker (...) be a banker with an awareness of this issue. Bank the good stuff, not the bad stuff,” Steyer explained. He finished up the discussion with a remembrance of the late Pope Francis, a “tremendous human being for the planet.”
Sam D'Amico and Nico Lauricella.Sean Vranizan
Also on Thursday was a lightning talk between Nico Lauricella, Heatmap’s CEO and editor in chief, and Sam D’Amico, the founder and CEO of Impulse Labs, which sponsored the event. D'Amico explained that in addition to being an induction stove, Impulse’s Cooktop is “a way to get battery storage into people's homes” — a “concept car” for using batteries in appliances to create a more decentralized grid. Lauricella and D’Amico also discussed the impacts of Trump’s tariffs on clean tech companies like Impulse, with D’Amico advising other founders in the room to build prototypes based on the supply chain and to make sure they have options in terms of where their products are manufactured so they can keep up with changing trade policies.
Impulse's high-power Cooktop on display at the event.Sean Vranizan
Lastly, Heatmap News staff writer Katie Brigham hosted a panel with Gabriel Kra, managing director and co-founder at Prelude Ventures, Clea Kolster, partner and head of science at Lowercarbon Capital, and Rajesh Swaminathan, partner at Khosla Ventures. The group spoke about the unique circumstances facing investors in the climate technology space, what their firms are looking for when investing in the newest climate innovations, and how AI fits into the picture.
Katie Brigham, Clea Kolster, Gabriel Kra, and Rajesh Swaminathan.Sean Vranizan
All three panelists acknowledged that it’s a delicate time for clean tech investors and companies alike. “Volatility and uncertainty are the enemies of running and planning a business,” warned Kra. The true cost of the tariffs is therefore extremely high, Kra explained. Kolster agreed that things are generally gloomy in the investment space, but also highlighted the technologies that are currently thriving. Carbon removal, she pointed out, “is going better than ever. Contracts are being inked right now, in the past few weeks.” The companies and technologies she’s excited about, Kolster added, are building “cheaper, better, faster,” as Steyer pointed out earlier in the evening.
Swaminathan added that there will always be a certain element of risk when it comes to investing in emerging technologies. “Clean tech companies have so many single points of failure,” he said. “And you have to prop up each part with the right leadership team. You have to have strong pillars so that [your company] doesn’t break.”
Guests following the discussion.Sean Vranizan
Sean Vranizan
Sean Vranizan
Sean Vranizan
Sean Vranizan
Sean Vranizan
Guests at SFCW
Sean Vranizan
Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Impulse, as well as our supporting sponsor, V2 Communications, and our event host, IndieBio.
On DOJ lawsuits, reconciliation, and solar permitting
Current conditions: A month out from the start of hurricane season, the North Atlantic Ocean is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than it was this time last year• Passenger ferry crossings between New Zealand’s North and South Island remain suspended through Friday afternoon due to a severe windstorm• Thunderstorms are expected to settle over Louisville, Kentucky, this afternoon, leading to a potentially wet Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs.
The Justice Department filed lawsuits this week against Hawaii, Michigan, New York, and Vermont to block the states’ climate-motivated lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. The government’s lawsuit against Hawaii and Michigan, filed on Wednesday, seeks to block the states from suing major oil and gas companies over alleged climate damages, which the DOJ argues obstructs the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. On Thursday, the DOJ also filed suit against New York and Vermont over their climate superfund laws, which would require fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by climate change, calling it a “transparent monetary-extraction scheme.” Attorney General Pamela Bondi argued all four laws are “burdensome and ideologically motivated” and “threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security.”
The House Natural Resources Committee released its portion of Republicans’ budget package on Thursday evening. The proposal goes to markup next week, and is subject to change, but includes several significant measures across its 96 pages. Some include:
In a statement slamming the bill, Lydia Weiss, the senior director of government relations at The Wilderness Society, said the proposals in sum will “fund tax cuts for the rich while doing nothing to help the average American taxpayer.” You can read the full contents of the bill here.
The Bureau of Land Management has approved a new solar project in Yuma County, Arizona, after a temporary halt on permitting. The move “appears to be the first utility-scale solar facility on federal acreage approved by the Trump administration,” my colleague Jael Holzman writes in The Fight. The BLM additionally released a draft environmental review of a separate solar project, also in Arizona.
As Jael notes, “The fact BLM is willing to admit other solar projects could advance later on is significant after the sputtering seen in the earliest days of the Trump administration.” Her caveat, however, is that it’s unclear if this means solar permitting is a beneficiary of the president’s “energy dominance” agenda, or if “at any moment, a news cycle or disgruntled legislator could steal the president’s ear and make him angry at solar power.”
A view of Punta Gorda, Florida, in 2024 after Hurricane Milton.Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The major reinsurance company Swiss Re has released a lengthy report about the upward trend of insured losses in the United States. Among its findings:
Read more of Swiss Re’s findings in the report here.
The Trump administration has ordered the National Science Foundation to stop awarding new grants or supplying funds for existing grants “until further notice,” according to an email reviewed by Nature. Before the funding freeze, NSF leadership had recently directed its staffers to return grant proposals concerning “topics or activities” not “in alignment with agency priorities” to their applicants.
In the past two weeks, the NSF has terminated $739 million worth of grants, Nature adds. As one NSF staffer told the publication, the Trump administration is “butchering the gold standard merit review process that was established at NSF over decades.” Colin Carlson, who is researching pandemic-causing viruses at Yale University with a team of 50 funded by a $12.5 million NSF grant, said the freeze will “destroy people’s labs.” The NSF has also contributed enormously to climate science over the years, including funding the first major ice core drilling project in Greenland in 1980 to study historical carbon dioxide data, and more recently, using advanced climate modeling to predict extreme weather events better.
“Saying that the U.S. is striving for energy dominance except in the clean energy sector is like opening a steakhouse and forgetting the meat.” —Former Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, writing for Heatmap about why real energy dominance requires preserving the IRA.