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The Tennessee Valley Authority, meanwhile, announced plans to keep two coal-fired plants operating beyond their planned retirement dates. In a move that seems laser-targeted at the White House, the federally-owned utilityâs board of directors â or at least those that are left after President Donald Trump fired most of them last year â voted Wednesday â voted Wednesday to keep the Kingston and Cumberland coal stations open for longer. âTVA is building Americaâs energy future while keeping the lights on today,â TVA CEO Don Moul said in a statement. âTaking steps to continue operations at Cumberland and Kingston and completing new generation under construction are essential to meet surging demand and power our regionâs growing economy.â
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said the Trump administration plans to appeal a series of court rulings that blocked federal efforts to halt construction on offshore wind farms. âAbsolutely we are,â the agency chief said Wednesday on Bloomberg TV. âThere will be further discussion on this.â The statement comes a week after Burgum suggested on Fox Business News that the Supreme Court would break offshore wind developersâ perfect winning streak and overturn federal judgesâ decisions invalidating the Trump administrationâs orders to stop work on turbines off the East Coast on hotly-contested national security, environmental, and public health grounds. Itâs worth reviewing my colleague Jael Holzmanâs explanation of how the administration lost its highest profile case against the Danish wind giant Orsted.
Thyssenkrupp Nuceraâs sales of electrolyzers for green hydrogen projects halved in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period last year. Itâs part of what Hydrogen Insight referred to as a âcontinued slowdown.â Several major projects to generate the zero-carbon fuel with renewable electricity went under last year in Europe, Australia, and the United States. The Trump administration emphasized the U.S. turn away from green hydrogen by canceling the two regional hubs on the West Coast that were supposed to establish nascent supply chains for producing and using green hydrogen â more on that from Heatmapâs Emily Pontecorvo. Another potential drag on the German manufacturerâs sales: Chinaâs rise as the worldâs preeminent manufacturer of electrolyzers.
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The artificial intelligence giant Anthropic said Wednesday it would work with utilities to figure out how much its data centers were driving up electricity prices and pay a rate high enough to avoid passing the costs onto ratepayers. The announcement came as part of a multi-pronged energy strategy to ease public concerns over its data centers at a moment when the server farmsâ effect on power prices and local water supplies is driving a political backlash. As part of the plan, Anthropic would cover 100% of the costs of upgrading the grid to bring data centers online, and said it would âwork to bring net-new power generation online to match our data centersâ electricity needs.â Where that isnât possible, the company said it would âwork with utilities and external experts to estimate and cover demand-driven price effects from our data centers.â The maker of ChatGPT rival Claude also said it would establish demand response programs to power down its data centers when demand on the grid is high, and deploy other âgrid optimizationâ tools.
âOf course, company-level action isnât enough. Keeping electricity affordable also requires systemic change,â the company said in a blog post. âWe support federal policies â including permitting reform and efforts to speed up transmission development and grid interconnection â that make it faster and cheaper to bring new energy online for everyone.â
A nickel mine in Indonesia. Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images
Syriaâs oil reserves are opening to business, and Western oil giants are in line for exploration contracts. In an interview with the Financial Times, the head of the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company listed Franceâs TotalEnergies, Italyâs Eni, and the American Chevron and ConocoPhillips as oil majors poised to receive exploration licenses. âMaybe more than a quarter, or less than a third, has been explored,â said Youssef Qablawi, chief executive of the Syrian Petroleum Company. âThere is a lot of land in the country that has not been touched yet. There are trillions of cubic meters of gas.â Chevron and Qatarâs Power International Holding inked a deal just last week to explore an offshore block in the Mediterranean. Work is expected to begin âwithin two months.â
At the same time, Indonesia is showing the world just how important itâs become for a key metal. Nickel prices surged to $17,900 per ton this week after Indonesia ordered steep cuts to protection at the worldâs biggest mine, highlighting the fast-growing Southeast Asian nationâs grip over the global supply of a metal needed for making batteries, chemicals, and stainless steel. The spike followed Jakartaâs order to cut production in the worldâs biggest nickel mine, Weda Bay, to 12 million metric tons this year from 42 million metric tons in 2025. The government slashed the nationwide quota by 100 million metric tons to between 260 million and 270 million metric tons this year from 376 million metric tons in 2025. The effect on the global price average showed how dominant Indonesia has become in the nickel trade over the past decade. According to another Financial Times story, the country now accounts for two-thirds of global output.
The small-scale solar industry is singing a Peter Tosh tune: Legalize it. Twenty-four states â funny enough, the same number that now allow the legal purchase of marijuana â are currently considering legislation that would allow people to hook up small solar systems on balconies, porches, and backyards. Stringent permitting rules already drive up the cost of rooftop solar in the U.S. But systems small enough for an apartment to generate some power from a balcony have largely been barred in key markets. Utah became the first state to vote unanimously last year to pass a law allowing residents to plug small solar systems straight into wall sockets, providing enough electricity to power a laptop or small refrigerator, according to The New York Times.
