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Sparks

New ‘SAF’ Just Dropped

A natural gas refinery is being converted into a plant for jet fuel made from carbon dioxide and green hydrogen.

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An American airplane.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

American Airlines will purchase sustainable aviation fuel from a first-of-its-kind facility under development in Texas called Project Roadrunner. Infinium, the company behind the project, will be converting a former natural gas refinery into a commercial “eFuels” plant where it will make jet fuel and diesel from carbon dioxide and green hydrogen. The company announced the offtake agreement on Wednesday along with a $75 million equity agreement with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a subsidiary of a climate tech firm backed by Bill Gates that focuses on first-of-a-kind projects. Infinium specified that it would use “waste CO2” for the process, although it did not say where the carbon would be sourced from.

Most so-called sustainable aviation fuels in use today are made from waste cooking oils and agricultural residues, but experts are skeptical they’re truly scalable. In theory, fuel made from carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere and green hydrogen could be carbon neutral, though capturing the carbon, and producing green hydrogen, requires a lot of energy.

This first appeared in Heatmap AM, a briefing on the most important climate and energy news. Sign up to get it in your inbox every week day:

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Sparks

The Fed’s First Rate Hike Since 2023 Is a Problem for Renewables

And the news gets worse.

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Kevin Warsh.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by a quarter point, the central bank announced Wednesday afternoon, its first rate change since Chairman Kevin Warsh took his seat in May and its first rate hike in over three years.

The federal funds rate will now sit between 3.75% and 4%. According to projections by regional Federal Reserve presidents and members of the Board of Governors, the central bank expects to hike rates one more time this year.

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Sparks

Why SoCal Electricity Customers Are Paying for Utility Reforms

The August Electricity Price Hub data is in.

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The Hollywood sign and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It’s another hot and expensive summer.

Across the country, average household electricity bills are up 2.7% in the first eight months of the year, according to the latest update to Heatmap and MIT’s Electricity Price Hub, tacking on $4 per month to the typical bill. This level of rise is consistent with the pace set in 2024 and 2025, but faster than 2021 and 2023.

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Sparks

The Startup Behind Lamppost-Mounted EV Chargers Pulls Into the Garage

Voltpost announced two new models today designed to mount on walls and ceilings.

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Voltpost chargers.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Voltpost, the company putting electric vehicle chargers on lampposts, is now expanding to parking garages.

On Wednesday, the company unveiled two new configurations that can attach to the walls and ceilings of parking garages, lots, and other locations without easy access to streetlights or utility poles. Like Voltpost’s signature pole-mounted design, the ceiling- and wall-mounted options avoid the expensive construction work required by freestanding charging infrastructure. In theory at least, that should allow the company to deploy more chargers faster.

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