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Electric Vehicles

Tesla Just Recalled Nearly 4,000 Cybertrucks

On sticky accelerators, Alaskan oil, and sinking cities

Tesla Just Recalled Nearly 4,000 Cybertrucks
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Unseasonably heavy rainfall killed at least 130 people across Pakistan and Afghanistan • Temperatures will soar to 111 degrees Fahrenheit today in Mali • It will be cool and cloudy in NYC, where thousands of high school students are expected to leave class to join a climate strike.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Tesla recalls Cybertrucks over sticky accelerator pedals

Tesla is recalling 3,878 Cybertrucks due to potentially faulty accelerator pedals. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “the accelerator pedal pad may dislodge and become trapped by the interior trim,” causing the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally. Or, as Rob Stumpf at Inside EVs put it, this issue “could potentially turn the stainless steel trapezoid into a 6,800-pound land missile.” The recall affects every single Cybertruck that has shipped so far, according to TechCrunch. Owners will be notified by mail, and Tesla will replace or repair the accelerator pedal at no charge. The news caps off a rough week for the embattled EV maker that started with mass layoffs.

2. Biden finalizes plan to limit new oil drilling and mining in Alaska

The Interior Department today moved to wall off huge swathes of the Alaskan wilderness to new drilling and mining activities. The plan will limit oil leasing and development across 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, and block new leasing completely across 10.6 million acres, plus the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean. “The move puts nearly half of the NPR-A’s 23 million acres off limits to oil drilling,” Politico reported. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) also recommended against the construction of a 211-mile mining route known as the Ambler Road that would have allowed for copper and zinc mining. The move would protect undeveloped land but has the downside of limiting access to critical minerals essential for the clean energy transition. Local Native tribes cheered the decisions; fossil fuel and mining groups condemned them.

In a separate decision, the BLM yesterday finalized a rule to help protect and restore public lands by recognizing and prioritizing conservation as an essential part of land management. The rule puts conservation “on equal footing” with other activities like grazing and energy development, and will help BLM “improve the health and resilience of public lands in the face of a changing climate,” the bureau said. Mining groups slammed the rule, while House Republicans called it “a classic example of overreach” and vowed to fight to have it rescinded.

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  • 3. Biden administration to unveil some recipients of clean energy tax credits

    Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is expected to announce the recipients of about $2 billion in clean energy tax credits today during a visit to a Siemens Energy facility in Raleigh, North Carolina. Among the grant winners are Siemens Energy Inc. and Danish electrolyzer manufacturer Topsoe A/S, according to Bloomberg. The Biden administration restarted the tax credit program last year thanks to injection of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. The “Advanced Energy Project Credit,” as it’s called, provides a 30% tax credit for clean energy projects that “expand domestic manufacturing, reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions, or help create a domestic supply chain for critical minerals.” The first round of funding will total $4 billion in credits for more than 100 projects. One source told Bloomberg that Topsoe will receive $136 million to put toward building a green hydrogen electrolyzer plant in Virginia.

    4. Heat-related ER visits rose substantially last year

    Nearly 120,000 heat-related visits to U.S. emergency departments were recorded last year, a substantial increase compared with previous years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Men under the age of 65 were the most likely demographic to show up in the ER with a heat-related health concern. The report notes that last year’s warm season (May through September) was the hottest ever recorded in the U.S. It calls for continued monitoring of health implications to help inform prevention measures as heat waves worsen. “Heat-related illness will continue to be a significant public health concern as climate change results in longer, hotter, and more frequent episodes of extreme heat,” the CDC said.

    5. Study: Many of China’s major cities are sinking

    Nearly half of China’s major cities are shrinking due to a combination of climate change and land subsidence, according to a study published in the journal Science. The researchers analyzed nationwide satellite data and found that 45% of urban lands are sinking at more than 3 millimeters per year. In total, one in 10 coastal residents in China could be living below sea level within a century. The subsidence is caused by water extraction and “the sheer weight of the built environment,” Reuters said. It’s exacerbated by rising sea levels due to climate change, a trend reflected across the world’s coastal regions. “By 2040, almost one-fifth of the world’s population is projected to be living on sinking land,” according to Nature.

    THE KICKER

    Investment in renewable energy reached a record $88 billion in the U.S. last year.

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    Adaptation

    The ‘Buffer’ That Can Protect a Town from Wildfires

    Paradise, California, is snatching up high-risk properties to create a defensive perimeter and prevent the town from burning again.

    Homes as a wildfire buffer.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    The 2018 Camp Fire was the deadliest wildfire in California’s history, wiping out 90% of the structures in the mountain town of Paradise and killing at least 85 people in a matter of hours. Investigations afterward found that Paradise’s town planners had ignored warnings of the fire risk to its residents and forgone common-sense preparations that would have saved lives. In the years since, the Camp Fire has consequently become a cautionary tale for similar communities in high-risk wildfire areas — places like Chinese Camp, a small historic landmark in the Sierra Nevada foothills that dramatically burned to the ground last week as part of the nearly 14,000-acre TCU September Lightning Complex.

    More recently, Paradise has also become a model for how a town can rebuild wisely after a wildfire. At least some of that is due to the work of Dan Efseaff, the director of the Paradise Recreation and Park District, who has launched a program to identify and acquire some of the highest-risk, hardest-to-access properties in the Camp Fire burn scar. Though he has a limited total operating budget of around $5.5 million and relies heavily on the charity of local property owners (he’s currently in the process of applying for a $15 million grant with a $5 million match for the program) Efseaff has nevertheless managed to build the beginning of a defensible buffer of managed parkland around Paradise that could potentially buy the town time in the case of a future wildfire.

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    Spotlight

    How the Tax Bill Is Empowering Anti-Renewables Activists

    A war of attrition is now turning in opponents’ favor.

    Massachusetts and solar panels.
    Heatmap Illustration/Library of Congress, Getty Images

    A solar developer’s defeat in Massachusetts last week reveals just how much stronger project opponents are on the battlefield after the de facto repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act.

    Last week, solar developer PureSky pulled five projects under development around the western Massachusetts town of Shutesbury. PureSky’s facilities had been in the works for years and would together represent what the developer has claimed would be one of the state’s largest solar projects thus far. In a statement, the company laid blame on “broader policy and regulatory headwinds,” including the state’s existing renewables incentives not keeping pace with rising costs and “federal policy updates,” which PureSky said were “making it harder to finance projects like those proposed near Shutesbury.”

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    Hotspots

    The Midwest Is Becoming Even Tougher for Solar Projects

    And more on the week’s most important conflicts around renewables.

    The United States.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    1. Wells County, Indiana – One of the nation’s most at-risk solar projects may now be prompting a full on moratorium.

    • Late last week, this county was teed up to potentially advance a new restrictive solar ordinance that would’ve cut off zoning access for large-scale facilities. That’s obviously bad for developers. But it would’ve still allowed solar facilities up to 50 acres and grandfathered in projects that had previously signed agreements with local officials.
    • However, solar opponents swamped the county Area Planning Commission meeting to decide on the ordinance, turning it into an over four-hour display in which many requested in public comments to outright ban solar projects entirely without a grandfathering clause.
    • It’s clear part of the opposition is inflamed over the EDF Paddlefish Solar project, which we ranked last year as one of the nation’s top imperiled renewables facilities in progress. The project has already resulted in a moratorium in another county, Huntington.
    • Although the Paddlefish project is not unique in its risks, it is what we view as a bellwether for the future of solar development in farming communities, as the Fort Wayne-adjacent county is a picturesque display of many areas across the United States. Pro-renewables advocates have sought to tamp down opposition with tactics such as a direct text messaging campaign, which I previously scooped last week.
    • Yet despite the counter-communications, momentum is heading in the other direction. At the meeting, officials ultimately decided to punt a decision to next month so they could edit their draft ordinance to assuage aggrieved residents.
    • Also worth noting: anyone could see from Heatmap Pro data that this county would be an incredibly difficult fight for a solar developer. Despite a slim majority of local support for renewable energy, the county has a nearly 100% opposition risk rating, due in no small part to its large agricultural workforce and MAGA leanings.

    2. Clark County, Ohio – Another Ohio county has significantly restricted renewable energy development, this time with big political implications.

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