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Sparks

Trump’s Climate Sneak Peek in Iowa

Sprinkled throughout Trump’s victory speech were a few anti-climate lines you’re likely to hear again.

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

On Monday night, former President Donald Trump handily won what will officially go down as the coldest caucus in Iowa’s history.

The global warming jokes, naturally, wrote themselves. But in his freewheeling, name-dropping, teleprompter-free victory speech in Des Moines, Trump showed uncharacteristic restraint in avoiding the low-hanging comedic fruit.

Perhaps it was because Trump’s mind was on other things: his civil damages trial that begins in New York City on Tuesday, say. Or maybe, as I suspect, it was part of a larger trend that has come to shape Trump’s third presidential campaign — that he’s honing his attacks on climate science and the energy transition for the 2024 race.

Certainly, Trump’s Iowa speech featured some of his favorite one-liners from the campaign trail. “He comes all the way from Missouri, which isn’t that far,” Trump said at one point in an apparent reference to Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, one of numerous surrogates who’d helped with a ground game Trump hadn’t seemed terribly interested in trying himself. “Couldn’t drive an electric car that far, though,” Trump added to laughs — a variation of a jab about range anxiety that he’s been trotting out at his rallies. (Des Moines to the Missouri border is 76 miles, which even the least efficient EVs could make without stopping; most new EVs on the market could also make it to the capital, Jefferson City — 255 miles away — on a single charge).

Trump also made enthusiastic references to “drilling,” promising we’ll do a whole lot of it if he gets the White House back. “We have to stop the invasion, we have to bring down the energy — you know, I say all the time, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any other nation anywhere in the world — and we have to stop the crime and we have to help rebuild our cities,” Trump went on, distracted from his usual script, which typically involves an additional story about President Biden “begging” Venezuela for oil.

Trump had also spoken in specifics earlier in the evening when he’d told would-be voters that “I stood up for ethanol like nobody has ever stood up for it” — another dig at Biden’s climate agenda, which has aimed to limit liquid fuel in vehicles, a sensitive issue for Iowa voters during their primary season.

But if Americans could agree on anything this week, it’s that it’s cold. Between the Iowa caucuses and Tuesday night, more than three-quarters of the country will experience temperatures below freezing — weather that will shatter over 200 winter temperature records, all told. And while that might lend itself to unoriginal jokes among conservatives, scientists say the arctic blast is exactly the kind of extreme event we can expect more of in a climate-changed world.

On Sunday, Trump mocked any alarm that might instill in people — including his own supporters — by telling a group of climate protesters that interrupted his rally to “go home to mommy. Your mommy’s waiting.”

But nowhere is safe, and there are a long 11 months and three seasons to go before the next election. Still, some things can grimly be assumed to be forgone: Trump will almost certainly be the Republican candidate. And whatever comes next, it will be worse.

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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.

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.

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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Why Your Car Insurance Bill Is Making Renewables More Expensive

Core inflation is up, meaning that interest rates are unlikely to go down anytime soon.

Wind turbines being built.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Fed on Wednesday issued a report showing substantial increases in the price of eggs, used cars, and auto insurance — data that could spell bad news for the renewables economy.

Though some of those factors had already been widely reported on, the overall rise in prices exceeded analysts’ expectations. With overall inflation still elevated — reaching an annual rate of 3%, while “core” inflation, stripping out food and energy, rose to 3.3%, after an unexpectedly sharp 0.4% jump in January alone — any prospect of substantial interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve has dwindled even further.

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