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Nuclear

Xi Jinping.
Ideas

China Can’t Decide if It Wants to Be the World’s First “Electrostate”

The country’s underwhelming new climate pledge is more than just bad news for the world — it reveals a serious governing mistake.

Politics

What Is Going On With Chris Wright’s Twitter?

You might even call the Energy Secretary ... Chris Wrong.

Climate Tech

An AI Startup for Nuclear Developers Just Raised $10.5 Million

The company, Nuclearn, aims to speed development and licensing processes with the help of a specially trained large language model.

Podcast

Shift Key Summer School: How Do Power Markets Work?

Jesse gives Rob a lesson in marginal generation, inframarginal rent, and electricity supply curves.

A nuclear power plant.

The Nuclear Power Dealmaking Boom Is Real

Thank data center developers and, yes, Trump.

Doug Burgum.

Interior Order Chokes Off Permits for Solar and Wind on Federal Lands

The department creates a seemingly impossible new permitting criteria for renewable energy.

Economy

The Jobs Report Shows AI Is the Only Game in Town

That’s okay for clean energy firms, terrible for manufacturers, and a big risk for everyone.

A solar installer.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

Over the past few months, you could put together three different — and somewhat conflicting — pictures of the American economy.

For companies exposed to the AI boom, business has been good — excellent, even. The surge in ongoing capital investment into data centers and electricity has been larger than other recent booms, such as the telecom buildout. Electricity demand is soaring, especially in Texas and the Mid-Atlantic. Technology companies have signed power offtake deals with nuclear and hydroelectricity companies. If anything, companies exposed to artificial intelligence are more afflicted by congested supply chains and shortages than by slack demand — see the yearslong waiting lists to get a new transformer or natural gas turbine.

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Politics

The Electricity Affordability Crisis Is Coming

It sure looks that way, at least. Democrats should start coming up with a plan.

Donald Trump and electricity.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Chevrolet</p>

For the first six months of President Trump’s term, the big question was about what would happen to the Inflation Reduction Act. We now have something like an answer.

President Trump’s memorably named One Big Beautiful Bill Act repealed many of the IRA’s most important clean energy tax credits, including incentives for wind, solar, and electric vehicles. And while it’s still unclear whether the Trump administration will let developers actually use the tax credits that remain on the books — especially the now-denuded credits for wind and solar — fewer “unknown unknowns” remain about what might come next.

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