This week we learned
- Lower interest rates could help rooftop solar. The Fed’s 50-basis-point rate cut means that a $30,000 home solar system would cost about $3,000 less over the course of a 20-year loan.
- The US is cracking down on HFC smugglers. Since the start of this fiscal year, customs agents have confiscated 211,000 metric tons of planet-warming chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons.
- Microsoft is bringing back Three Mile Island. Constellation Energy will invest $1.6 billion to restart the dormant reactor, whose output will be sold to Microsoft to meet its data centers’ AI-driven power demand.
- The “Doomsday glacier” is a ticking clock. Tidal action on the underside of the Thwaites Glacier in the Antarctic will “inexorably” accelerate melting this century, according to new research.
- Wildfire is harshing the vibe for California cannabis. As insurers pull back from the state due to growing wildfire risk, pot farmers increasingly find themselves confronting catastrophe on their own.
- A “dead tree” emoji is on the way. Pitched to raise awareness of climate change, the “leafless tree” joins six other new emojis that will begin appearing on phones in the first half of 2025.
- AI is driving a resurgence of gas plants in the US… To meet demand from data centers, factories and EVs, energy companies are planning new natural gas-fired power generation at the fastest pace in years.
- …while gas plants in the UK are barely switched on. Running hours for gas-fired power plants in the country are at the lowest since at least 2017 as wind, solar and imports from Norway and France flood the grid.
- “Summer of Heat” didn’t stop Citigroup. During activists’ three-month protest at the bank’s headquarters, Citi helped arrange $4.2 billion of bonds for fossil fuel companies, up from $2.8 billion last summer.