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Heatmap Wins a National Magazine Award

We have some exciting news to share.

Nico Lauricella •
04/11/2025
A bottle of champagne.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

I wanted to update you on some very exciting news — our Decarbonize Your Life section just won the National Magazine Award for Service Journalism. It’s a huge honor for a publication that just turned two years old last month and a testament to the outstanding journalism our small but mighty newsroom does every day guiding our readers through the great energy transition.

A huge shout out, in particular, to our deputy editor Jillian Goodman for making the section so smart and helpful, to Robinson Meyer for dreaming up the idea, and to all the writers — Jeva, Katie, Emily, Charu, Taylor, and Andrew — who reported so insightfully for it. Tackling a complex but consequential subject like how to make better personal decisions around climate change was a massive undertaking, but a labor of love.

If you missed this special section, you can check it out here.

And thank you, as always, for reading us and making our work possible.

Nico
Founder & Editor in chief



Nico Lauricella profile image

Nico Lauricella

Nico is the founder and editor in chief of Heatmap. He was previously the editor in chief of The Week online.

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Sparks

5 Things to Keep in Mind When It’s Smoky Outside

What are the health risks? How can I protect myself? And will my plants be okay?

Trisha Gupta •
07/16/2026
Smoky days.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

If you live anywhere near the Great Lakes or Mid-Atlantic (or certain parts of the Mountain West), odds are it’s smoky where you live. Wildfires raging in western Ontario are sending smoke cascading south and east across the U.S., prompting widespread air quality alerts affecting millions of Americans.

The good and — very bad — news is that we’ve been here before. Here’s a look back at some of Heatmap’s coverage from the summer of 2023, when smoke produced by forest fires in Quebec blanketed 128 million people in a murky haze and turned the New York City skyline an ominous shade of orange.

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Sparks

Virginians Are Getting an Electricity Price Doubly-Whammy

Rates were up 17% year over year in June, according to the latest Electricity Price Hub update, with another increase on the way.

Matthew Zeitlin •
07/10/2026
Virginia and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

With higher temperatures come higher electricity bills. Whether through higher seasonal charges or greater usage, Americans across the country were paying more for electricity in June.

In Virginia, the epicenter of the data center boom, the typical household electricity bill was $192 in June, up from $172 in June of last year, according to the latest data from the Heatmap and MIT’s Electricity Price Hub. Rates, meanwhile, were about 18 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to just over 15 cents in June of last year, a 12% hike. Rates were also up from the end of last year, when they were about 15.5 cents.

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Blue
Sparks

Fervo Is Drilling Wells Deeper, Faster, and Hotter

The enhanced geothermal company just announced a new 19,448-foot well.

Matthew Zeitlin •
07/09/2026
A Fervo installation.
Heatmap Illustration/Fervo, Getty Images

Enhanced geothermal company Fervo has drilled another well.

This one is 19,448 feet deep, the company announced Thursday, and includes a 7,500-foot span laterally across the sub-surface. The well — called Sawtooth 7, part of Phase II of its flagship Cape Station project in Milford, Utah — took 21 days to drill, the company said. That matches the time required to drill the wells in Phase I, though the new one is nearly 35% deeper than those, on average, with a 50% greater lateral extension.

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Green