Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

A Clean Energy Scandal Brings Down Portugal’s Prime Minister

You know the climate economy has made it when ...

Antonio Costa.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

As investment in renewable energy rises globally, so too does the potential for massive corruption. This proved true on Tuesday, when Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa resigned amid an explosive investigation into his administration’s handling of lithium mining and hydrogen projects.

“The dignity of the functions of prime minister is not compatible with any suspicion about his integrity, his good conduct, and even less with the suspicion of the practice of any criminal act,” Costa said in a tearful televised announcement on Tuesday.

While Costa assured viewers that he would be cooperating with authorities in their investigation, he maintained his innocence, adding that he is “not conscious of having done any illegal act or even any reprehensible act.”

Per NPR, the investigation involves “alleged malfeasance, corruption of elected officials, and influence peddling” in awarding concessions for lithium mines in northern Portugal, as well as a green hydrogen plant and proposed data center in the town of Sines. Portugal’s large lithium reserves are viewed as essential to the European Union’s green energy transition because the mineral is used in the batteries powering electric vehicles.

Costa’s announcement came hours after police raided several public buildings and detained Costa’s chief of staff, Vítor Escária. Arrest warrants have also been issued for four other people in Costa’s inner circle, including the mayor of the town of Sines. Prosecutors additionally named infrastructure minister João Galamba as a formal suspect in the corruption probe. These suspects, according to a statement from the prosecutor general’s office, used Costa’s name and influence to “unblock procedures” related to the exploration concessions.

After taking office in 2015, Costa was re-elected with an absolute majority last year, though his administration has been plagued by scandal and allegations of misconduct ever since. In December 2022, his infrastructure and housing minister was forced to resign amid a controversy over an irregular severance payment made to a former board member of the state-owned airline TAP Air Portugal.

“It is a stage of my life that is finished,” Costa said in his announcement, adding that he will not be running for office again.

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

Major Renewables Nonprofit Cuts a Third of Staff After Trump Slashes Funding

The lost federal grants represent about half the organization’s budget.

The DOE wrecking ball.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council, a decades-old nonprofit that provides technical expertise to cities across the country building out renewable clean energy projects, issued a dramatic plea for private donations in order to stay afloat after it says federal funding was suddenly slashed by the Trump administration.

IREC’s executive director Chris Nichols said in an email to all of the organization’s supporters that it has “already been forced to lay off many of our high-performing staff members” after millions of federal dollars to three of its programs were eliminated in the Trump administration’s shutdown-related funding cuts last week. Nichols said the administration nixed the funding simply because the nonprofit’s corporation was registered in New York, and without regard for IREC’s work with countless cities and towns in Republican-led states. (Look no further than this map of local governments who receive the program’s zero-cost solar siting policy assistance to see just how politically diverse the recipients are.)

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Sparks

Esmeralda 7 Solar Project Has Been Canceled, BLM Says

It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.

Donald Trump, Doug Burgum, and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada has been canceled amidst the Trump administration’s federal permitting freeze.

Esmeralda 7 was supposed to produce a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power – equal to nearly all the power supplied to southern Nevada by the state’s primary public utility. It would do so with a sprawling web of solar panels and batteries across the western Nevada desert. Backed by NextEra Energy, Invenergy, ConnectGen and other renewables developers, the project was moving forward at a relatively smooth pace under the Biden administration, albeit with significant concerns raised by environmentalists about its impacts on wildlife and fauna. And Esmeralda 7 even received a rare procedural win in the early days of the Trump administration when the Bureau of Land Management released the draft environmental impact statement for the project.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

Trump Just Suffered His First Loss on Offshore Wind

A judge has lifted the administration’s stop-work order against Revolution Wind.

Donald Trump and wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A federal court has lifted the Trump administration’s order to halt construction on the Revolution Wind farm off the coast of New England. The decision marks the renewables industry’s first major legal victory against a federal war on offshore wind.

The Interior Department ordered Orsted — the Danish company developing Revolution Wind — to halt construction of Revolution Wind on August 22, asserting in a one-page letter that it was “seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas.”

Keep reading...Show less
Blue