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Energy

A SPAN device.
Energy

Span Is Building a New Kind of Electric Utility

The maker of smart panels is tapping into unused grid capacity to help power the AI boom.

AM Briefing

EV Fee

On forever chemicals, Indian and Swedish nuclear, and Ford’s battery business

Green
AM Briefing

A $400 Billion Megamerger

On Thacker Pass, the Bonneville Power Administration, and Azerbaijan’s offshore wind

Blue
A big pile of cash.

The Department of Energy Is Spending a Tiny Fraction of Its Money

Deep cuts to the department have left each staffer with a huge amount of money to manage.

Green
Donald Trump and Rick Perry.

How Trump’s Speed-to-Power Push for Data Centers Could Backfire

Will moving fast and breaking air permits exacerbate tensions with locals?

Yellow
Hotspots

South Carolina County Mulls Lifting Solar Ban

And more of the week’s top fights around development.

The United States.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

1. Berkeley County, South Carolina – Forget about Richland County, Ohio. All eyes in Solar World should be on this county where officials are trying to lift a solar moratorium.

  • Berkeley County instituted a solar moratorium in 2023. Now RWE is asking the county to lift the moratorium and the county’s land use committee voted this week at a hearing to recommend doing so, citing concerns from state utility Santee Cooper about energy prices. The county has seen electricity prices rise roughly 20% over the past three years, according to our Electricity Price Hub.
  • “They flat out said they need more power. They’re not going to have enough power by 2029,” councilmember Amy Stern said at a hearing Monday. “We are going to have more of this [discussion]. The moratorium lift[ing], all it does is allow us to get more information.” RWE wants to rezone land for a utility-scale solar farm the company claims would provide 198 megawatts, enough power for 37,000 homes.
  • Some most vocally supportive of the moratorium packed the hearing room, becoming so boisterous the council threatened local sheriff intervention. This shouldn’t be surprising; public opinion modeling indicates overall support for renewable energy in Berkeley County but the area has a substantial opposition risk score – 62 – in the Heatmap Pro database.
  • I’m closely monitoring whether the outcry overrules concerns about energy prices and Berkeley County supervisor Johnny Cribb told attendees of the hearing he’s against lifting the moratorium: “I’m against large-scale solar farms in this county, because of the reality of our county.”

2. Hill County, Texas – We have our first Texas county trying to ban new data centers and it’s in one of the more conservative pockets of the state.

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AM Briefing

Silica Skies

On Cleveland’s rejection, Cuba’s energy crisis, and U.S. LNG exports

Earth.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

Current conditions: Winds topping 60 miles per hour are howling through the mountains in Montana and the Dakotas • An early heatwave in the Central United States is driving temperatures in Texas and Oklahoma as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit • Though it’s still early in the season, the Arctic is on track to experience its highest number of wildfire ignitions in 3,000 years.


THE TOP FIVE

1. A secretive geoengineering startup unveils its technology

Stardust Solutions, the startup led by former Israeli government physicians that’s promising technology that can reflect sunlight back into space and artificially cool the planet, has released information on the proprietary particle it wants to spray in the atmosphere. On Thursday, the company laid out blueprints for two separate particles, both nearly spherical and half a micron in size. The materials are made from natural compounds frequently used in toothpaste and food additives. The first-generation technology is amorphous silica, which the company called “fully bio-safe, manufacturable at scale today, and at a very advanced stage of validation.” The second-generation formulation adds a calcium carbonate core inside the silica shell. “The reason is straightforward: At high doses, any particle that absorbs a meaningful amount of the Earth’s outgoing infrared radiation will heat the stratosphere, which is a side effect you want to avoid,” the company said. “Gen 2 is as reflective to the incoming sunlight (visible light), but is more transparent to the outgoing infrared radiation, so it can be deployed at higher doses without that heating effect.”

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