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“Put simply, cold temperatures stress the grid,” my colleague Jeva Lange and Matthew Zeitlin wrote last week. “That’s because cold can affect the performance of electricity generators as well as the distribution and production of natural gas, the most commonly used grid fuel. And the longer the grid has to operate under these difficult conditions, the more fragile it gets.”
The Department of Energy just proposed exempting advanced nuclear reactors from carrying out reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, marking yet another step the Trump administration is taking to speed up deployment of new atomic power technologies. Past environmental assessments have demonstrated “that any hazardous waste, radioactive waste, or spent nuclear fuel generated by the project can be managed” and “do not significantly affect the quality of the human environment.” The new categorical exclusion takes effect today, but the agency is taking public comments for the next 30 days and said it may revise the policy depending on the testimony it receives.
When Matthew wrote “everyone wants nuclear now” back in 2024, he was referring to the suddenly ubiquitous popularity of a once taboo energy source. But if you read those four words to instead convey a sense of urgency, you’d be accurately describing the state of affairs in 2026 as electricity demand rapidly eclipses incoming supply, as I wrote last week.
A Canadian company developing what it claims is one of the continent’s first major new sources of alumina, the processed version of bauxite needed to make aluminum, is set to move ahead with the project. The privately-owned Canadian Energy Metals said late last week that the $6.3 billion project contains an estimated 6.8 billion metric tons of alumina within a 230-square-mile stretch of the Prairie province of Saskatchewan. Canada ranks among the top global producers of primary aluminum, but its refineries and smelters rely on imports. The discovery the startup confirmed appears to be large enough to represent more than a third of known alumina globally. “We believe it’s very significant,” Christopher Hopkins, the chief executive at CEM, told The Wall Street Journal.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, is taking stock of the value of friends in the fight to find critical minerals outside of China’s control. Trump officials are trying to rally consensus with allies on a pricing mechanism to boost long-term investments in mineral refining and mining. The effort is set to take place this week during meetings with dozens of foreign ministers in Washington. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg told Bloomberg he expects a lot of “momentum and excitement” toward “agreeing on a price mechanism that we can all coordinate together on in order to ensure price stability for people in the mineral refining and extraction business.”
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More than 200 people were killed last week when the Rubaya coltan mine in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo collapsed. Rubaya produces roughly 15% of the world’s coltan, a processed metal needed for electric vehicle batteries, pipelines, and gas turbines. The site, which Reuters said is staffed with locals who dig manually for a few dollars per day, has been under the control of the M23 rebel group since 2024. The actual death toll, which hasn’t been updated since its initial count last week, is likely even higher. The disaster offers a grim reminder of the brutal conditions in the mineral supply chains needed for the energy transition.
A view of Drax's wood-burning plant in North Yorkshire, England. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Things were already looking bad for Drax as the wood pellet energy giant faced mounting scrutiny over its pollution. Last week, I told you that Japan, one of the world’s largest markets burning wood pellets for electricity and heat, was souring on the energy source. Now a senior policy specialist at the company’s flagship biomass power station has spoken out about the accuracy of public statements the company made about where it was sourcing its wood. In theory, biomass energy could be low carbon if it uses wood that would otherwise rot and release the carbon trapped inside. But investigations into Drax previously found that the company was felling old-growth forests in the U.S. and Canada, the types of mature trees that absorb the most carbon through photosynthesis, calling its claims of carbon neutrality into question. Drax insisted that didn’t have even licenses to extract trees from such woodlands at all, meaning the company wasn't harvesting them, but the senior employee said that wasn’t true.
Past studies of polar bear of Svalbard found that the population declined when sea ice disappeared. But new research in the journal Scientific Reports based on hundreds of specimens of Ursus maritimus, discovered that the physical conditions of the bear population on the Norwegian Arctic island improved despite sea ice losses. Without sea ice, the bears were previously thought to struggle to hunt and grow thinner. But the authors suggested that the Svalbard bears may be recovering as populations of land-based prey that were previously over-hunted by humans, such as reindeer and walrus, returns.
Current conditions: The bomb cyclone barrelling toward the East Coast is set to dump up to 6 inches of snow on North Carolina in one of the state’s heaviest snowfalls in decades • The Arctic cold and heavy snow that came last weekend has already left more than 50 people dead across the United States • Heavy rain in the Central African Republic is worsening flooding and escalating tensions on the country’s border with war-ravaged Sudan.
A chart from the NERC report showing the grids most at risk between now and 2030. NERC
Every year, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation — a quasi-governmental watchdog group that monitors the health of the power grids in the United States and Canada — publishes its analysis of where things are headed. The 2025 report just came out, and America is bathed in a sea of red. The short of it: Electricity demand is on track to outpace supply throughout much of the country. The grids that span the Midwest, Texas, the Northwest, and the Mid-Atlantic face high risks — code red for reliability. The systems in the Northeast, the Carolinas, the Great Plains, and broad swaths of Canada all face elevated risk over the next four years. The failure to build power plants quickly enough to meet surging demand is just one issue. NERC warned that some grids, such as those in the Pacific Northwest, the Mountain West, and Great Basin states, are staring down potential instability from the addition of primarily weather-dependent renewables such as solar panels and wind turbines that, absent batteries and grid-forming technologies, make managing systems built around firm sources such as coal and hydroelectricity harder to balance.
There’s irony there. Solar and wind are among the fastest new generating sources to build. They’re among the cheapest, too, when you consider how expensive turbines for gas plants have grown as manufacturers’ backlogs stretch to the end of the decade. But they’re up against a Trump administration that’s phasing out tax credits and refusing to permit projects — even canceling solar megaprojects that would have matched the capacity of large nuclear stations. The latest tactic, as my colleague Jael Holzman described in a scoop last night, involves challenging the aesthetic value of wind and solar installations.
Copper prices just surged by the most in more than 16 years after what Bloomberg pegged to a “wave of buying from Chinese investors” that “triggered one of the most dramatic moves in the market’s history.” Prices surged as much as 11% to above $14,500 per ton for the first time before falling somewhat. It was enough to earn headlines about “metals mania” and “absolutely bonkers” pricing. The metal is used in virtually every electrical application. Between China commencing its march toward becoming the world’s first “electrostate” and U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaling a stronger American economy than previously thought, investors are betting on demand for copper to keep growing. For now, however, the prices on copper futures contracts are already leveling off, and Goldman Sachs forecasts the price to fall before stabilizing at a level still well above the average over the last four years.
While this chart from last week didn't predict Thursday's record spike, it does forecast a return to a lower level in the near future. Goldman Sachs
Amid the volatility, the Trump administration may be shying away from a key tool used to make investments in new mines less risky. On Thursday, Reuters reported that two senior Trump officials told U.S. minerals executives that their projects would need to prove financial independence without the federal government guaranteeing a minimum price for what they mine. “We’re not here to prop you guys up,” Audrey Robertson, assistant secretary of the Department of Energy and head of its Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, reportedly told the executives gathered at a closed-door meeting hosted by a Washington think tank earlier this month. “Don’t come to us expecting that.” The Energy Department said that Reuters’ reporting is “false and relies on unnamed sources that are either misinformed or deliberately misleading.” At least one mining startup, United States Antimony Corporation, and a mining economist have echoed the administration’s criticism. One tool the Trump administration certainly isn’t wavering on is quasi nationalization. Just two days ago I was telling you about the latest company, USA Rare Earth, to give the government an equity stake in exchange for federal financing.
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The V-shaped maroon-colored line representing 2026 shows how quickly coal consumption just jumped. EIA
Coal-fired electricity generation in the Lower 48 states soared 31% last week compared to the previous week amid Winter Storm Fern’s Arctic temperatures, according to a new analysis by the Energy Information Administration. It’s a stark contrast from the start of the month, when milder temperatures led to lower coal-fired power production versus the same period in 2025. Natural gas generation also surged 14% compared to the previous week. Solar, wind, and hydropower all declined. Nuclear generation remained nearly unchanged.
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The specter of an incident known as “whoops” haunts the nuclear industry. Back in the 1980s, the Washington Public Power Supply System attempted to build several different types of reactors all at once, and ended up making history with the biggest municipal bond default in U.S. history at that point. The lesson? Stick to one design, and build it over and over again in fleets so you can benefit from the same supply chain and workforce and bring down costs. That, after all, is how China, Russia, and South Korea successfully build reactors on time and on budget. Now Jeff Bezos’ climate group is backing an effort to get the Americans to adopt that approach. On Thursday, the Bezos Earth Fund gave a $3.5 million grant to the Nuclear Scaling Initiative, a partnership between the Clean Air Task Force, the EFI Foundation, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. In a statement, the philanthropy’s chief executive, Tom Taylor, called the grant “a targeted bet that smart coordination can unlock much larger public and private investment and turn this first reactor package into a model for many more.” Steve Comello, the executive director at the Nuclear Scaling Initiative, said the “United States needs repeat nuclear energy builds — not one off projects — to bolster energy security, improve grid reliability, and drive economic competitiveness.”
The Netherlands must write stricter emissions-cutting targets into its laws to align with the Paris Agreement in the name of protecting Bonaire, one of its Caribbean island territories, from the effects of climate change. That’s according to a Wednesday ruling by the District Court of The Hague in a case brought by Greenpeace. The decision also found that Amsterdam was discriminating against residents of the island by failing to do enough to help the island adapt to the existing effects of global warming, including sea-level rise, flooding, and extreme weather. Bonaire is the largest and most populous of the trio of islands that form the Dutch Caribbean territory and includes Sint Eustatius and Saba. The lawsuit, the Financial Times noted, was “one of the first to test climate obligations on a national level.”
The least ecologically destructive minerals to harvest for batteries and other technologies come not from the ground but from old batteries and materials that can be recycled. Recyclers can also get supply up and running faster than a mine can open. With the U.S. aggressively seeking supplies of rare earths that don’t come from China, the recycling startup Cyclic Materials sees an opportunity. The company is investing $82 million to build its second and largest plant. At full capacity, the first phase of the new facility in South Carolina will process 2,000 metric tons of magnet material per year. But the firm plans to eventually expand to 6,000 tons.
