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Sparks

Prince William Announces the Earthshot Prize Winners

They include startups focused on protecting Andean forests, recycling batteries, and setting up a carbon market for soil.

Jacob Lambert •
11/07/2023
Hannah Waddingham and Prince William.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Earthshot Prize, an annual award by Prince William’s Royal Foundation, was given to five climate-focused startups on Tuesday. The winners — each of which will receive $1.2 million and “tailored support” from the prize’s “global alliance of partners” — were Acción Andina, a Peruvian initiative to protect Andean forests; GRST, a Hong Kong builder and recycler of lithium-ion batteries; S4S Technologies, an Indian project to combat food waste and reduce rural poverty; WildAid, a global nonprofit dedicated to improving ocean health; and Boomitra, a multinational company working to create a soil carbon marketplace.

“I choose to believe that future generations will look back on this decade as the point at which we globally took collective action for our planet… [and] became the architects of change towards a healthy and sustainable world,” Prince William said at the ceremony, which was held at Singapore's Theatre at MediaCorp.

The initiative launched in 2020 with the goal of boosting 50 such environmental solutions by 2030, each year awarding prizes in five categories: Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World, and Fix Our Climate. Past winners include an Indian producer of small greenhouses that aims to help farmers become more climate-resilient, and a Thai company whose “plug and play" electrolyzers offer an innovative approach to creating clean hydrogen fuel.

This year’s winners were selected by the prince, former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, Fijian climate activist Ernest Gibson, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, and others. The ceremony was co-hosted by actors Hannah Waddingham and Sterling K. Brown, and celebrity presenters included Cate Blanchett and Robert Irwin, the 19-year-old son of the late Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin.

“It fills me with a lot of hope when there’s an incredible public figure, a real voice for change, who is putting his platform behind environmental issues,” Irwin said of Prince William. “And instead of focusing on all the ways the world is suffering, [The Earthshot Prize is] an initiative that … is a beacon of hope.”

Green
Jacob Lambert profile image

Jacob Lambert

Jacob is Heatmap's founding multimedia editor. Before joining Heatmap, he was The Week's digital art director and an associate editor at MAD magazine.

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Sparks

These 21 House Republicans Want to Preserve Energy Tax Credits

For those keeping score, that’s three more than wanted to preserve them last year.

Jillian Goodman •
03/10/2025
The Capitol.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Those who drew hope from the letter 18 House Republicans sent to Speaker Mike Johnson last August calling for the preservation of energy tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act must be jubilant this morning. On Sunday, 21 House Republicans sent a similar letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith. Those with sharp eyes will have noticed: That’s three more people than signed the letter last time, indicating that this is a coalition with teeth.

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Sparks

The Country’s Largest Power Markets Are Getting More Gas

Three companies are joining forces to add at least a gigawatt of new generation by 2029. The question is whether they can actually do it.

Matthew Zeitlin •
02/26/2025
Natural gas pipelines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Two of the biggest electricity markets in the country — the 13-state PJM Interconnection, which spans the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest, and ERCOT, which covers nearly all of Texas — want more natural gas. Both are projecting immense increases in electricity demand thanks to data centers and electrification. And both have had bouts of market weirdness and dysfunction, with ERCOT experiencing spiky prices and even blackouts during extreme weather and PJM making enormous payouts largely to gas and coal operators to lock in their “capacity,” i.e. their ability to provide power when most needed.

Now a trio of companies, including the independent power producer NRG, the turbine manufacturer GE Vernova, and a subsidiary of the construction firm Kiewit Corporation, are teaming up with a plan to bring gas-powered plants to PJM and ERCOT, the companies announced today.

The three companies said that the new joint venture “will work to advance four projects totaling over 5 gigawatts” of natural gas combined cycle plants to the two power markets, with over a gigawatt coming by 2029. The companies said that they could eventually build 10 to 15 gigawatts “and expand to other areas across the U.S.”

So far, PJM and Texas’ call for new gas has been more widely heard than answered. The power producer Calpine said last year that it would look into developing more gas in PJM, but actual investment announcements have been scarce, although at least one gas plant scheduled to close has said it would stay open.

So far, across the country, planned new additions to the grid are still overwhelmingly solar and battery storage, according to the Energy Information Administration, whose data shows some 63 gigawatts of planned capacity scheduled to be added this year, with more than half being solar and over 80% being storage.

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Sparks

An Emergency Trump-Coded Appeal to Save the Hydrogen Tax Credit

Featuring China, fossil fuels, and data centers.

Emily Pontecorvo •
02/18/2025
The Capitol.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

As Republicans in Congress go hunting for ways to slash spending to carry out President Trump’s agenda, more than 100 energy businesses, trade groups, and advocacy organizations sent a letter to key House and Senate leaders on Tuesday requesting that one particular line item be spared: the hydrogen tax credit.

The tax credit “will serve as a catalyst to propel the United States to global energy dominance,” the letter argues, “while advancing American competitiveness in energy technologies that our adversaries are actively pursuing.” The Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association organized the letter, which features signatures from the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Clean Energy Buyers Association, and numerous hydrogen, industrial gas, and chemical companies, among many others. Three out of the seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — the Mid-Atlantic, Heartland, and Pacific Northwest hubs — are also listed.

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