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Heat pumps are cool. Neighborhood geothermal might be cooler.
A landmark project with major implications for how Americans could cleanly heat and cool their homes broke ground in Framingham, Massachusetts, on Monday.
Eversource, the largest gas and electric utility in New England, began construction on its first “networked geothermal” system. The company will connect 32 residential and five commercial buildings in a single neighborhood to underground water pipes, which will draw on the steady temperature of the ground beneath the earth’s surface to air condition and heat the buildings without fossil fuels.
Clean energy advocates across the country are looking to the demonstration as a test of the idea that natural gas utilities can remain in business in a decarbonized world by managing a network of pipes filled with water instead of climate-warming gas.
“I would say it's not just being watched nationally, it's being watched globally,” Zeyneb Magavi, the co-executive director of the Massachusetts-based clean energy nonprofit HEET, told me. Magavi and her partner, Audrey Schulman, dreamed up the idea of transforming gas utilities into geothermal utilities several years ago, and were instrumental in getting Eversource to consider the project.
“If they succeed enough, and I have no doubt they will, they're gonna be the founding install of a new utility that's going to be the foundation of our future energy system,” she said. “It's not that often that you get to give birth to a new utility.”
Geothermal heating systems have been around for nearly a century, and are known for being incredibly efficient. You may have heard of air-source heat pumps, commonly referred to simply as heat pumps, which function like an air conditioner in the summer and a furnace in the winter by transferring heat inside and outside the building. Geothermal heat pumps work similarly, but they use the ground as a source and sink for heat, rather than the ambient air. (They are different, but related to geothermal power plants, which tap into much hotter reservoirs underground to generate electricity.) Since the ground is a more stable temperature than the air, geothermal heat pumps require less energy. Networked geothermal systems have the potential to reduce energy use even more.
Many individual homes and buildings run on geothermal heating systems today, but all the drilling and piping translates into big upfront costs. Magavi told me the spark of HEET’s idea for a neighborhood-wide system dates back to 2008, when she wanted to install geothermal at her own home, but couldn’t afford it. Later, when she joined HEET and began thinking about what a future without gas could look like, she and Schulman discovered geothermal projects elsewhere in the country, such as a small town in Iowa, and a college campus in Colorado, where multiple buildings were linked to the same pipes. The systems didn’t seem all that different from the gas distribution networks they were looking to replace.
The project in Framingham involves building a new set of pipelines alongside the gas system. Each participating building will get a service pipe connecting it to a main horizontal line that runs through the neighborhood, which is in turn connected to a series of vertical lines that go about 500 feet deep. Water runs through the system, bringing heat up from the ground and delivering it to heat pumps inside the buildings in the winter, or absorbing heat from the homes and dumping it back underground in the summer.
Illustration of a networked geothermal systemAnara Magavi/HEET
The whole system is expected to be up and running by the fall. Eversource estimates the project will cost $14.7 million, and has received approval from regulators to pay for it with ratepayer funds, spread across its entire customer base. Participants will not pay any additional fees on top of the cost to run the heat pump equipment on their electricity bill. They will retain their existing heating and cooling systems, and will have the option to go back to them after the two-year pilot period.
Residents could see a 20% reduction in energy costs, according to Eversource, and around a 60% decrease in carbon emissions, taking into account the current electricity supply. The company will be gathering data throughout the pilot to confirm the actual cost, energy, and carbon savings of the project. “We also want to make a strong business case for why this should be done by the utility and why it makes sense for us to be building out systems like this,” said Eric Bosworth, the senior program manager for clean technologies at Eversource.
Magavi and Schulman see networked geothermal as an elegant solution to one of the biggest challenges of tackling climate change: avoiding what’s known as the utility death-spiral. If people begin swapping out their natural gas heaters for electric heat pumps, they will drive up costs for remaining gas customers, which will motivate more people to go electric, and inflate gas bills even more.
Geothermal presents a path for utilities to retain their customers. They already have the expertise to build and manage underground pipelines and heating equipment. And Magavi argues that if utilities take on the up front costs, it would give people more equitable access to clean energy. “You can just sign up with the utility — you don't have to have upfront capital, knowledge, or time,” she said. “That equity of access is something that is necessary for a just transition.”
If geothermal heating and cooling were to really take off, it could also help with another major climate challenge — the electric grid. The switch to electric vehicles and heat pumps is going to require a massive expansion of clean electricity resources and transmission and distribution wires. Widespread adoption of geothermal heat pumps could minimize that buildout. Boswoth told me that geothermal networks could be strategically deployed in areas that are electrically constrained.
Many climate advocates also like the idea because it presents a clear transition opportunity for natural gas workers, like those in the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union that build and maintain gas pipelines. “Networked geothermal systems could be a promising option for providing high road job opportunities to these workers,” Jenna Tatum of the Building Electrification Institute told me.
But that’s one aspect of the promise of networked geothermal that the Framingham project won’t be demonstrating. Eversource hired a third party construction company and hasn’t entered an agreement with any unions yet, although Bosworth said the company was actively engaged with the Pipefitters Union regarding longer-term geothermal plans.
The pilot in Framingham will be the first networked geothermal system operated by a utility, but it definitely won’t be the last. Massachusetts regulators have approved a handful of additional networked geothermal projects to be owned and operated by Eversource and another gas utility, National Grid. New York State is also moving forward on a number of utility-owned pilots. Several other states, like Minnesota, have also passed laws that encourage gas utilities to pursue geothermal.
“We expect that we're going to see a pretty significant pilot proposal in [utility] plans modeled after the work that's been done out East,” Joe Dammel, managing director of buildings for Fresh Energy, a Minnesota-based clean energy nonprofit, told me.
One challenge that’s come up as the idea has taken off is that no one can seem to agree about what it should be called. While the term is “networked geothermal” in Massachusetts, New York is using “thermal energy network.” Magavi said it’s also been referred to as “community geothermal,” a “thermal highway,” an ATL or “ambient temperature loop,” a “heatnet” and a “5G” network. All of this is further complicated by the fact that the terms “geothermal energy,” “heat pumps,” and “district energy,” can all refer to fundamentally different technologies.
“It’s a nightmare,” she told me. She said she’s initiated a campaign with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Department of Energy to set language standards. “There’s a survey currently going out to everyone to ask them what they think about all the different names.”
The Framingham pilot could be significantly expanded if all goes well. HEET collaborated with Eversource to apply for funding from the Department of Energy for a second networked geothermal system in the city that would be connected to the first one, and was recently awarded a $717,000 grant.
Advocates like Magavi hope these projects will turn into a full-on transition strategy for utilities to move away from a business model based on gas or other fuels. At the groundbreaking on Monday, Eversource chairman, president, and CEO Joe Nolan made a bold statement that seemed to support that notion. “As we transition to a carbon-free future, this is going to be the answer for everybody,” he said. “And it’s all starting right here.”
But when I talked to Bosworth, he qualified that at this point the company sees geothermal as one “tool in the proverbial toolbelt.” Like many utilities, Eversource is also exploring the potential to deliver lower-carbon fuels like biogas and hydrogen through its gas lines.
“We want to take a look at any and all potential pathways and really vet them for what is viable, and what works where,” Bosworth told me. “We will use a combined approach to get to our carbon neutrality goals.”
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On the IEA’s latest report, flooding in LA, and Bill Gates’ bad news
Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms tomorrow could spawn tornadoes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama • A massive wildfire on a biodiverse island in the Indian Ocean has been burning for nearly a month, threatening wildlife • Tropical Cyclone Zelia has made landfall in Western Australia with winds up to 180mph.
Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has learned. Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.
“Breakthrough Energy made up a relatively small share — perhaps 1% — of climate philanthropy worldwide,” Brigham writes. “But what has made Breakthrough Energy distinctive is its support for policy and advocacy groups that promote a wide range of technological solutions, including nuclear energy and direct air capture, to fight climate change.”
Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap’s Jael Holzman. Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter also requested “an immediate cession of construction” at four offshore wind projects with federal approvals that have begun construction: Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard Wind 1, and Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects.
“This letter represents a new stage of Trump’s war on offshore wind,” Holzman writes. “Yes, he has frozen leasing, along with most permitting activity and even public meetings related to pending projects. But the president's executive order targeting offshore wind opened the door to rescinding leases and previous permits. Doing so would produce new, costly legal battles for developers and for publicly-regulated utilities, ratepayers. Over the past few weeks, offshore wind developers with projects that got their permits under Biden have sought to reassure investors that at least they’ll be fine. If this new request is heeded, that calm will subside.”
Heavy downpours triggered flooding and debris flows across Los Angeles County yesterday. A portion of the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the most iconic roadways in America, is closed indefinitely due to mudslides near Malibu, an area devastated in last month’s fires. Duke’s Malibu, a famous oceanfront restaurant along the PCH, was inundated. The worst of the rain has passed now and many flood alerts have been canceled, but the cleanup has just begun.
Rain flows down a street outside a burned home.Mario Tama/Getty Images
Global electricity use is set to rise by 4% annually through 2027, “the equivalent of adding an amount greater than Japan’s annual electricity consumption every year,” according to the International Energy Agency’s new Electricity 2025 report. Here are some key points:
IEA
JPMorgan Chase clients have apparently been demanding more guidance about the climate crisis. As a result, the bank launched a new climate report authored by its global head of climate advisory, Sarah Kapnick, an atmospheric and oceanic scientist who was previously chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report seeks to build what Kapnick is calling “climate intuition” – the ability to use science to assess and make strategic investment decisions about the shifting climate. “Success in the New Climate Era hinges on our ability to integrate climate considerations into daily decision-making,” Kapnick writes. “Those who adapt will lead, while others risk falling behind.” Here’s a snippet from the report, to give you a sense of the tone and takeaways:
“Adhering to temperatures below 1.5C will require emissions reductions. Depending on your definition of 1.5C, they may require historic annual reductions and potentially carbon removal. Conversely, if you have a technical or financial view that carbon dioxide removal will not scale, you should assume there is a difficult path to 1.5C (i.e. emissions reductions to zero depending on your definition in 6, 15, or 30+ years). If that is the case, you need to plan for the physical manifestations of climate change and social responses that will ensue if your investment horizons are longer.”
Greenhouse gas leaks from supermarket refrigerators are estimated to create as much pollution each year as burning more than 30 million tons of coal.
Grantees told Heatmap they were informed that Bill Gates’ climate funding organization would not renew its support.
Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap has learned.
Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.
“Bill Gates and Breakthrough Energy remain as committed as ever to using our voice and resources to advocate for the energy innovations needed to address climate change,” the Breakthrough spokesperson told me in a written statement. “We continue to believe that innovation in energy is essential for achieving global climate goals and securing a prosperous, sustainable world for future generations.”
Gates founded Breakthrough Energy in 2015 to help develop and deploy technologies that would help the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The organization made more than $96 million in grants in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.
Among its beneficiaries was the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based think tank that promotes technological solutions to climate change. (Despite having a similar name, it is not affiliatedwith Breakthrough Energy.) Last week, a representative from Breakthrough Energy told the institute’s executive director, Ted Nordhaus, that its funding would not be renewed. The Breakthrough Institute had previously received a two-year grant of about $1.2 million per year, which wrapped up this month.
“What we were told is that they are ceasing all of their climate grantmaking — zeroed out immediately after the USAID shutdown because Bill wants to refocus all of his grantmaking efforts on global health,” Nordhaus told me on Monday, referring to the Trump administration’s efforts to defund the United States Agency for International Development. “But it’s very clear that this wasn’t brought on solely by USAID. I had heard from several people that there was a big reassessment going on for a couple of months.”
The Breakthrough spokesperson disputed this characterization, and denied that cutbacks were due to the USAID shutdown or a shift in funding from climate to global health initiatives. The spokesperson also told me that some grantmaking budget remains, though they would not reveal how much.
As for Breakthrough Institute, the funding cut will primarily impact its agricultural program, which received about 90% of its budget from Breakthrough Energy. Nordhaus is trying to figure out how to keep that program afloat, while the institute’s other three areas of policy focus — energy and climate, nuclear innovation, and energy and development — remain largely unaffected.
Multiple other organizations confirmed to Heatmap that they also will not receive future grants from Breakthrough Energy. A representative for the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment, a trade organization for sustainability professionals, told me that Breakthrough had recently informed the group that it would not renew a $400,000 grant, which is set to wrap up this May. (ACLCA’s spokesperson also noted that the grant had not come with any indication that it would be renewed.) Another former grantee told me that while their organization is currently wrapping up a grant with Breakthrough and does not have anything in the works with them for this year, they expected that future funding would be impacted, though they did not explain why.
Breakthrough Energy made up a relatively small share — perhaps 1% — of climate philanthropy worldwide. Foundations and individuals around the world gave a total of $9 billion to $15 billion to climate causes in 2023, according to an analysis from the Climateworks Foundation.
But what has made Breakthrough Energy distinctive is its support for policy and advocacy groups that promote a wide range of technological solutions, including nuclear energy and direct air capture, to fight climate change.
“Their presence will be missed,” said the CEO of another climate nonprofit who was notified by Breakthrough that its funding would not be renewed. Breakthrough Energy “was one of the few funders supporting pragmatic research and advocacy work that pushed at neglected areas such as the need for zero-carbon firm power and accelerated energy innovation,” they added.
"Even if it’s a drop in the bucket, it still makes a difference,” another former grantee with a particularly large budget told me. This organization recently sent Breakthrough an inquiry about partnering up again and is waiting to hear back. “But for small organizations, it’s make it or break it.”
Speculation abounds as to the rationale behind Breakthrough’s funding cuts. “I have heard that one of the reasons that Bill decided to stop funding climate was that he concluded that there was so much money in climate that his money really wasn’t that important,” Nordhaus told me. But that is not true when it comes to agriculture, he said, which comprises about 12% of global emissions. ”There’s very little money for advocating for agriculture innovation to address the climate impacts of the ag sector,” Nordhaus told me.
Gates, who privately donated to a nonprofit affiliated with the Harris campaign in 2024 but did not endorse the Democrat, dined with Trump and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, for more than three hours at Mar-a-Lago around New Year’s Day, he told Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker. He said that Trump was interested in the possibility of eradicating polio or developing an HIV vaccine. “I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” he told her, days before the inauguration.
Since then, Trump’s war on USAID has frozen funding to a polio eradication program and shut down the phase 1 clinical trial of an HIV vaccine in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda.
The Trump administration is now being lobbied to nix offshore wind projects already under construction.
Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap.
Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter lays out a number of perceived issues with how those approvals have historically been issued for offshore wind companies and claims the government has improperly analyzed the cumulative effects of adding offshore wind to the ocean’s existing industrialization. NOAA oversees marine species protection.
The letter also requested “an immediate cession of construction” at four offshore wind projects with federal approvals that have begun construction: Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard Wind 1, and Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects.
“It is with a sense of real urgency we write you today,” the letter states, referencing Trump’s executive order targeting the offshore wind industry to ask that he go further. “[E]leven projects have already received approvals with four of those under construction. Leasing and permitting will be reviewed for these approved projects but may take time.”
I obtained the letter from Paul Kamenar, a longtime attorney in conservative legal circles currently with the D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, who told me the letter had been sent to the department this week. Kamenar is one of multiple attorneys involved in a lawsuit filed last year by Heartland and CFACT challenging permits for Dominion’s Coastal Virginia project over alleged potential impacts to the endangered North Atlantic right whale. We reported earlier this week that the government signaled in proceedings for that case it will review approvals for Coastal Virginia, the first indication that previous permits issued for offshore wind could be vulnerable to the Trump effect.
Kamenar described the request to Burgum as “a coalition letter,” and told me that “the new secretary there is sympathetic” to their complaints about offshore wind permits. “We’re hoping that this letter will basically reverse the letter[s] of authorizations, or have the agency go back,” Kamenar said, adding a message for Dominion and other developers implicated by the letter: “Just because the company has the approval doesn’t mean it’s all systems go.”
The Interior Department does not directly oversee NOAA – that’s the Commerce Department. But it does control the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which ultimately regulates all offshore wind development and issues final approvals.
Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Some signees of the document are part of a constellation of influential figures in the anti-renewables movement whose voices have been magnified in the new administration.
One of the letter’s two lead signatories is David Stevenson, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the Caesar Rodney Institute, an organization involved in legal battles against offshore wind projects under development in the Mid-Atlantic. The Institute says on its website it is a member of the State Policy Network, a broad constellation of think tanks, legal advocacy groups, and nonprofits.
Multiple activists who signed onto the letter work with the Save Right Whales Coalition, a network of local organizations and activists. Coalition members have appeared with Republican lawmakers at field hearings and rallies over the past few years attacking offshore wind. They became especially influential in GOP politics after being featured in a film by outspoken renewables critic and famous liberal-turned-conservative Michael Shellenberger, who is himself involved in the Coalition. His film, Thrown to the Wind, blew up in right-wing media circles because it claimed to correlate whale deaths with offshore wind development.
When asked if the Coalition was formally involved in this request of the administration, Lisa Linowes, a co-founder of the Coalition, replied in an email: “The Coalition was not a signer of the request.”
One cosigner sure to turn heads: John Droz, a pioneer in the anti-wind activist movement who for years has given talks and offered roadmaps on how best to stop renewables projects.
The letter also includes an endorsement from Mandy Davis, who was involved with the draft anti-wind executive order we told you was sent to the Trump transition team before inauguration. CFACT also co-signed that draft order when it was transmitted to the transition team, according to correspondence reviewed by Heatmap.
Most of the signatories to the letter list their locations. Many of the individuals unrelated to bigger organizations list their locations as in Delaware or Maryland. Only a few signatories on the letter have locations in other states dealing with offshore wind projects.
On its face, this letter represents a new stage of Trump’s war on offshore wind.
Yes, he has frozen leasing, along with most permitting activity and even public meetings related to pending projects. But the president’s executive order targeting offshore wind opened the door to rescinding leases and previous permits. Doing so would produce new, costly legal battles for developers and for publicly-regulated utilities, ratepayers. Over the past few weeks, offshore wind developers with projects that got their permits under Biden have sought to reassure investors that at least they’ll be fine.
If this new request is heeded, that calm will subside.
Beyond that, reversing these authorizations could represent a scandal for scientific integrity at NOAA – or at least NOAA’s Fisheries division, the National Marine Fisheries Service. Heeding the letter’s requests would mean revisiting the findings of career scientists for what developers may argue are purely political reasons, or at minimum arbitrary ones.
This wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened under Trump. In 2020, I used public records to prove that plans by career NOAA Fisheries employees to protect endangered whales from oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic were watered down after a political review. At the time, Democratic Representative Jared Huffman — now the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee — told me that my reporting was evidence of potential scientific integrity issues at NOAA and represented “blatant scientific and environmental malpractice at the highest order.”
It’s worth emphasizing how much this mattered, not just for science but literally in court, as the decision to allow more seismic testing for oil under Trump was challenged at the time on the grounds that it was made arbitrarily.
Peter Corkeron, a former NOAA scientist with expertise researching the North Atlantic right whale, reviewed the letter to Burgum and told me in an email that essentially, the anti-offshore wind movement is exploiting similar arguments made by conservationists about issues with the federal government’s protection of the species to target this sector. The federal regulator has for many years faced the ire of conservation activists, who’ve said it does not go far enough to protect endangered species from more longstanding threats like fishing and vessel strikes.
If NOAA were to bow to this request, Corkeron wrote, he would interpret that as the agency’s failure to fully protect the species in good faith instead becoming “suborned by the hydrocarbon exploitation industry as a way of eliminating a competing form of energy production that should, in time, prove more beneficial for whales than what we’re currently doing.”
“The point on cumulative impacts is, on face value, fair,” he said. “The problem is its lack of context. Cumulative impacts on North Atlantic right whales from offshore wind are possible. However, in the context of the cumulative impacts of the shipping (vessel strike kills, noise pollution), and fishing (death, maiming, failure to breed) industries, they’ll be insignificant. Because NOAA has never clearly set out to address ways to offset other impacts while developing the offshore wind industry, these additive impacts place a burden on this new industry in ways that existing, and more damaging, industries don’t have to address.”
CFACT responded to a request for comment by sending me a press release with the letter attached that was not publicly available, and did not respond to the climate criticisms by press time. David Stevenson of the Caesar Rodney Institute sent me a statement criticizing offshore wind energy and questioning its ability to “lower global emissions.”
“The goal is to pause construction until everything is reviewed,” Stevenson said. When asked if there was an outcome where a review led to projects being built, he said no, calling offshore wind an “environmental wrecking ball.”
Well, we’ll soon find out what the real wrecking ball is.