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President Donald Trump got his “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” and a Fourth of July signing ceremony to boot. America got the removal of 11.8 million people from health insurance programs, tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy — and the dissolution of both longstanding and newly erected pillars of energy and industrial policy.
The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act is a law not of creation but destruction. It’s the antithesis of former President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which was ultimately pared down into the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. That law sought to push America toward the future, toward clean energy. This new law tethers the country to the past, to coal and oil and gas.
It eliminates a set of subsidies that have, over decades, helped solar and wind mature from niche technologies to cornerstones of our power grid. It scraps tax credits for rooftop solar, electric vehicles, and heat pumps, making it more expensive for the average person to buy these cleaner options. It threatens to pull the rug out from under manufacturers who, encouraged by the incentives created by the Inflation Reduction Act, had chosen to build new factories to make products like solar panels and lithium-ion batteries in the United States.
Jobs will be lost. Energy will get even more expensive. Billions more tons of carbon dioxide will escape into the atmosphere, needlessly, trapping more and more heat under the lid of a planet that is already boiling over.
Though dozens of congressional Republicans voiced their support for various clean energy subsidies in recent months — and though Republican congressional districts benefit most from the manufacturing boom the incentives have created — Trump’s signature legislation ultimately faced almost no resistance. Browbeaten by the president, every GOP lawmaker who had signed onto letters supporting clean-energy incentives voted for the law, save one. That lone holdout was Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who had announced his retirement days before.
In effect, the new law repeals much of the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark law that was not only helping the United States reduce its carbon emissions, but also gave the country a much-needed injection of industrial policy. It was a rare, coherent attempt to marshal the might of the U.S. government to boost an industry — in this case, clean energy — deemed critical to national interests.
That policy was working.
After the law went into effect and introduced a new subsidy for clean-energy factories, the long-stagnant U.S. manufacturing and industrial base began to undergo a remarkable revitalization.
Firms unveiled plans to invest more than $100 billion to build solar-panel and EV and battery factories that would create an estimated 115,000 jobs. Construction spending on U.S. manufacturing facilities grew far faster than it has since the turn of the century. One major metal company announced plans to build the first new aluminum smelter in the U.S. in 45 years, the result of an ambitious Biden-era program that sought to power heavy industrial processes without fossil fuels. That same program spurred plans for futuristic new steel plants that would operate without coal. The Trump administration dismantled that program in May, and the fate of those projects remains unclear.
The Inflation Reduction Act greatly accelerated the development of clean energy. This trend was underway before Biden’s law went into effect, thanks to a pair of tax credits, one of which dates back to George H. W. Bush’s administration and the other of which to the second term of George W. Bush. Biden’s signature climate law took these existing policies and expanded them, turbocharging the already-rapid rise of renewables. The results speak for themselves: As of last year the U.S. now gets more electricity from wind and solar than from coal. Big grid batteries have helped Texas and California keep the lights on during heat waves.
Now, with the repeal of those and other incentives, it’s expected that the U.S. will plug somewhere between 57% and 72% less clean energy into the grid over the next decade. Because clean energy accounts for nearly all new electricity capacity built in the U.S., it’s unclear what, if anything, would fill in that gap. It won’t be new gas-fueled plants — turbine orders are severely backed up. The solar, wind, and battery projects that do get built will be more expensive because the clean-energy subsidies are now gone. Those higher costs will be passed on to households and businesses, exacerbating the energy inflation Americans are already dealing with.
The timing could not be worse. Around the country, demand for electricity is anticipated to grow at a pace not seen in years. One of the biggest drivers is the proliferation of data centers that underpin increasingly popular AI systems like ChatGPT — and can use as much power as a small city. Making energy scarce right when it’s needed most will put even more upward pressure on power bills. And without abundant electricity, the U.S. will struggle to compete with China on AI.
China already dominates all things clean energy, making and installing more of all its various forms than most other countries combined. The Inflation Reduction Act was meant to help the U.S. wrest some control back from China in those technologies. The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act will instead put the U.S. further behind on clean energy, and possibly AI too.
It’s difficult to square the destruction of these policies with Republicans’ stated priorities.
The GOP and Trump himself have repeatedly extolled the virtues of affordable and abundant energy. They’ve spoken about the need to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. They say they want to maintain economic competitiveness with China, and certainly want to come out ahead in the AI race.
And yet the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act will essentially eliminate the only industrial policy the U.S. had in place to enable it to accomplish those goals.
Maybe the fossil fuel money, which has flowed toward Republicans and Trump like an oil spill, explains this behavior. Or perhaps, as writers like Derek Thompson have suggested, all of this is simply about owning the libs. Certainly fear of crossing Trump forced Republicans to fall in line. He wanted badly to extend his tax cuts, and slashing clean energy will help pay for a tiny portion of doing so.
Some congressional Republicans have reasoned that solar, wind, EVs, and other forms of clean energy are mature enough to no longer need subsidies. It’s true that these technologies have come a long way, but fossil fuels continue to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies in the U.S., according to the International Monetary Fund. There are no signs that this spigot will be turned off. In fact, the GOP’s bill will toss one slice of the industry another $150 million each year in direct subsidies.
Whatever the reason, the effect is clear. The U.S. under Trump has hitched itself to fossil fuels, to combustion, to literally ancient forms of energy that more forward-thinking countries will be leaving behind in the coming decades. For reasons economical as much as ecological, the future will be dictated by clean energy.
Dean Solon stands out as one of the very few self-made billionaires to emerge from the U.S. solar industry, following the tremendous 2021 initial public offering on the Nasdaq of his solar-equipment firm Shoals.
But a few weeks ago, as he and I found seats outside the Midwest Solar Expo in a far western suburb of Chicago, it was clear the major cashout hadn’t changed his style. Solon, age 61, was dressed not in Balenciaga or Louis Vuitton, but his trademark jean shorts and athletic sneakers.
“I’m gonna go from a large Dunkin Donuts to an extra-large Dunkin Donuts now,” he said. “I still, to this day, drive a 2017 Chevy Bolt, 100% electric. I still live in the same house. I didn’t do it for the money then, I don’t do it now.”
In fact, Solon’s instinct to tinker and solve problems has thrust him back into the solar manufacturing space at the industry’s most chaotic moment in years.
“The renewables building is on fire, and it is hot as fuck, and everybody’s running away from the fire,” he said. “We have asbestos-clad underwear on. We have our fire suit on, and we got a hose, and we’re running into the fire.”
Solon has decided to compete in these dire circumstances by essentially building the entire menu of items needed for a modern solar, battery, or microgrid project, and designing all the pieces to fit together seamlessly. His new firm, Create Energy, will sell developers solar modules, trackers, batteries, inverters, power stations, and other auxiliary equipment. The goal is to save customers time and effort compared to buying separately from a tracker vendor, a module vendor, an inverter vendor, and so on, and then assembling all those components with separate crews.
It’s an ominous time to start a new solar manufacturing business in America, to say the least. After a booming few years following the implementation of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and its various, generous clean-energy manufacturing incentives, firms now find themselves squeezed between fluctuating tariffs and the detonation of those same incentives, following President Donald Trump’s signing of the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act last week.
What better moment to check in with one of the most singular voices in the solar industry, who has survived and thrived through the solarcoaster of the last two decades without wavering in his commitment to American manufacturing?
Solon’s previous company Shoals originally made automotive parts for Bosch back in the ‘90s. But after the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, lifting most tariffs between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, Bosch wanted to relocate its suppliers to the latter nation, and Solon refused to move his operation out of Tennessee, he recalled.
Around that same time, he got an inbound request from a budding solar enterprise that needed some manufactured junction boxes and cable assemblies; that upstart turned out to be First Solar, pretty much the only U.S. panel manufacturer that has excelled over the last few decades (and whose stock has been on a tear as Congress prepared to revoke tax credits for solar projects that use Chinese-made materials).
Once he made the jump into solar equipment in the early 2000s, Solon kept manufacturing in America, even as installers and developers embraced cheaper Chinese products and U.S. cell and module manufacturing collapsed.
“Solar makes sense, with or without incentives; Buying American-made products, even better,” Solon said. “Listen, I fly the American flag like crazy. I grew up in the ‘70s working on American cars. I’m a gearhead my whole life. I love American-made products, and I’m gonna push it.”
That ethos continues in the new venture. The strategy is to build high-quality equipment and find customers who understand its value, because they’re investing with a longer-term mindset.
“We’re not looking for every Tom, Dick, and Harry that’s trying to flip a project to build it as cheap as possible with garbage,” he said. “I’m looking for the [independent power producers], the big power companies, who want to buy systems that are going to last for decades.”
In theory, a company with this attitude would welcome tariffs, which raise the cost of cheaply produced competition from Chinese factories. The last few months have seen new tariffs aplenty, though Trump has waived some within days or weeks of announcing them. But while tariffs are often billed as helpful to domestic manufacturers, President Trump’s tariffs are also causing complications for the American factory buildout.
For starters, Trump’s blanket tariffs on all Chinese goods impact manufacturing equipment produced in that country. Not only does China make most of the world’s solar panels — it also makes many of the machines required to manufacture solar.
“To be clear on this point, there’s no better-built machines for solar than Chinese equipment, end of story,” Solon said. “That’s how good it is. It’s heads and tails better than anywhere else you could get machinery.”
“It was easy to order machinery, but then once the tariffs hit, there’s a lot of machinery just sitting in ports in China that hasn’t left,” he added.
Even if Solon could get his hands on that equipment without exorbitant price hikes, the U.S. lacks enough production of solar cells — the component that actually converts sunlight into electricity — to meet the demand for domestic module assembly. Factories that can’t obtain the limited domestic cells need to import them, but the so-called reciprocal tariffs Trump has announced on much of the world, and then delayed, have scrambled the economics for cells from outside the U.S.
Create is making other products at its Portland, Tennessee, factory, but the timeline for making solar modules in-house has been pushed back due to the macroeconomic headwinds.
A decade ago, solar module costs started to plunge, and the price of solar-generated power fell along with it. That has propelled solar to the front of the pack for new power plant construction. But lately the slope of cost declines has leveled off, and incremental module improvements do less and less to push the cost of solar power lower.
Solon is stepping into that mature marketplace, so he has to bring something new to the table to stand out. After years of making the electrical connectors needed to hook up solar panels into a functioning power plant, he realized he could eliminate several steps for installers with clever design hacks.
Today’s standard solar-plant construction process creates inefficiencies. “Everyone is this separate crew working on the same rows over and over and over ‘til they do it in the next location,” Solon said.
A singular project might have different crews clear the earth, pound the posts, add torque tubes, bolt the modules in place, check the torque on the bolts, handle the electrical work, and then clean up the site, he said.
The new products from Create come with electrical connections pre-wired into the modules and the torque tubes of the trackers. Installers can easily snap everything together, at which point, Solon insists, the systems won’t need any more maintenance.
Solon’s goal was to make installation so easy that it would be doable for an avatar of the modern man that he refers to as “Mr. Hot-Pocket Muncher,” who is “happy living in mommy’s basement eating Hot Pockets and playing 12 hours of Xbox.”
“Take my module, and grab Mr. Hot-Pocket Muncher,” Solon envisioned, after showing me an AI rendering of the character, which his colleague on hand advised him against making available for publication. “He picks it up. He clicks it on the torque tube. Did I hear it click? Yes, I’m done. Grab the next one. Click, yes. All the wiring is done. All the mechanical connections are done, and they’re non-serviceable. There’s nothing for an [operations and maintenance] crew to ever do again.”
That vision would threaten a number of specialized jobs in the solar installation and maintenance business. But it would also deliver more efficient construction, so the same workforce could theoretically deliver more clean power in the same amount of time. If Solon can pull it off, that kind of benefit could be valuable as the industry stares down the loss of its decades-long tax-credit regime.
Solon doesn’t deny that the solar industry writ large is heading for a contraction, but he rejects the more apocalyptic outlooks some fear for the sector. Instead, he thinks it’ll be a reset for the industry after the bounty of Biden-era policy supercharged the pace of activity.
“Right now, the solar business is a drunk pirate that partied like a rock star all last night,” Solon mused. “We woke up, we’re hung over as hell, and we’re reaching for our wallet and our keys, and we can’t find either one of them. And we wonder what the hell happened? I think we’re gonna be hung over for about six months to a year.”
The wave of bankruptcies has already begun, taking down longtime industry stalwarts like solar loan provider Mosaic, rooftop solar financier Sunnova, grid-battery integrator Powin Energy, and more.
It’s not a bad time to have a billion dollars in the bank and several decades of manufacturing experience.
“If you’re in a consolidated market [and] people are going out of business, who are you going to run to to get your products and services?” chimed in Create’s chief of staff, Joe Fahrney, who was sitting next to Solon at the Midwest Solar Expo. “So people are lining up to buy from Dean Solon, because they know Dean and Create will be in business over the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years.”
“This time it won’t IPO though,” Solon interjected. “I’m not giving up control, because I want this little baby to run for hundreds of years.”
Two years after the last attempt to build out wind farms in Maine’s northern reaches fizzled, the state is again gearing up to seek developers to build at least 1,200 megawatts of land-based wind capacity and a transmission line to carry the electricity produced to the central part of the state. At the same time, grid operator ISO New England is accepting proposals for new transmission infrastructure that will allow that power to flow to the rest of the region.
For wind power advocates, these moves have sparked hope that a new source of renewable energy may finally be developed in the region.
“After talking about this for the last 15 years, I feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Francis Pullaro, president of clean-energy industry association RENEW Northeast. “It’s definitely complicated and a big undertaking, but I think the state has realized what a great opportunity northern Maine wind provides.”
Maine and most of its neighboring states have ambitious emissions-reduction targets: Maine just adopted legislation calling for 100% clean energy by 2040, for example, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island both aim to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Offshore wind has been a major part of the states’ strategies for transitioning away from a system that now leans heavily on natural gas for electricity generation. However, as the Trump administration throws up roadblocks to offshore wind development, it becomes even more important to tap into land-based wind to keep progressing toward a cleaner energy future, supporters said.
“It’s a really important medium-term piece of the puzzle in how we reduce our dependence on gas as a region and for our state,” said Jack Shapiro, climate and clean energy director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, an environmental advocacy group. “It’s a pretty big deal.”
Plans to build onshore wind in northern Maine’s remote Aroostook County have come and gone several times over the past two decades. In 2008, then-Gov. John Baldacci (D) signed a law setting a goal of bringing 2,000 MW of wind power online by 2015 and 3,000 MW, including some offshore wind, by 2020. As of this year, the state has 1,139 MW of onshore wind operational and no offshore turbines.
Aroostook County — with its strong winds and low population density — has long been considered a prime area for building turbines, but its promise has not been realized. One of the major obstacles has been the lack of transmission lines to carry power from the forests of northern Maine to the lightbulbs and dishwashers of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Most of Aroostook County is served by an electrical system connected only to Canada, with no direct links to any U.S. power grid. Building the needed lines is a complex, costly undertaking that has repeatedly stymied efforts to get wind generation up and spinning.
“For the southern New England states where all the load is, [northern Maine] always was a fairly distant resource,” Pullaro said. “The lack of transmission has always been the barrier.”
In 2013, Connecticut selected a planned wind development in Aroostook County — EDP Renewables’ Number Nine Wind Farm — to provide 250 MW of power to the state. By the end of 2016, the project had been cancelled, with EDP citing the lack of transmission capacity to get the electricity to customers farther south.
In the final days of 2022, Massachusetts agreed to buy 40% of the power generated by the proposed King Pine wind farm in Aroostook County, a deal that seemed to give the 1,000-MW project the financial security it needed to proceed. By the end of 2023, however, a separate agreement with LS Power to build a transmission line connecting the development to the rest of New England fell through over pricing disagreements, undermining the prospect of wind development.
“The contract negotiations were not successful, and the project stalled,” said Dan Burgess, director of the Maine Governor’s Energy Office.
Now the state has gone back to the drawing board. This time around, however, the plans are getting an unprecedented boost from ISO New England. The regional grid operator in late March issued a request for proposals for the development of a transmission project connecting the Maine town of Pittsfield to points farther south in New England, shortening the distance the power lines from future Aroostook County wind farms will have to travel. A plan could be chosen as soon as September 2026.
Meanwhile Maine utilities regulators released a request for information to collect feedback from developers, industry members, and other stakeholders to help plan and schedule its next procurement. There has been a robust response to the request, though most comments were filed confidentially, said Susan Faloon, spokesperson for the Maine Public Utilities Commission. The tentative plan is to open up for proposals by the end of the year, she said.
Whether the next attempt will be successful hinges on a few factors, starting with its ability to financially weather Republicans’ scaleback of federal clean-energy tax credits and the administration’s continued, evolving hostility to renewable energy projects. Trump halted federal permitting and leasing for wind projects on his first day in office, and although 99% of onshore wind farms are built on private property, they still could need environmental permits from the administration.
“The economics of any specific project is really uncertain right now because we don’t know what will happen,” Shapiro said.
Still, Pullaro said, history suggests that onshore wind development could survive the blow of losing federal support. The grid needs more energy, and land-based wind is one of the least expensive power sources to build, even without incentives, while the cost of new natural gas generation is going up, according to a recent report from investment bank Lazard.
“From the industry point of view and for consumers, wind is still a good deal no matter where the tax situation is,” Pullaro said.
Tweaks to the state’s timeline for issuing a request for proposals and choosing a project could also increase the likelihood of success, Pullaro said. A wind development stands a much better chance of succeeding, he said, if another state commits to buying power from it, giving it a revenue stream it can count on. Getting Massachusetts on board could be even more crucial than federal support, he said.
Massachusetts is still authorized to enter into another such agreement until the end of the year, and Gov. Maura Healey (D) included in a supplemental budget bill a provision that would extend this authorization to 2027, but the legislation is still pending. In the meantime, if Maine waits until the end of 2025 or into 2026 to launch a new solicitation, the eventual development could lose its chance to secure a deal with Massachusetts. Pullaro, therefore, would like to see Maine issue a request for proposals by September.
“The economics don’t work for Maine going it alone,” he said.
Congress moved one step closer to passing President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” this week — and with that, one step closer to spiking power bills across the nation.
The bill would rapidly phase out tax credits for clean energy, slowing the construction of solar, wind, and battery projects, which made up over 90% of new electricity connected to the grid last year.
Repealing those tax credits would come at a steep cost to utility customers in every state, according to NERA analysis commissioned by the Clean Energy Buyers Association. The most impacted states could see electricity prices rise by nearly 30% by 2029.
The Senate bill passed Tuesday would require solar and wind projects to either start construction within a year of the bill’s passage or start service by the end of 2027 to receive the tax credits. Those that begin construction after this calendar year would be subject to “foreign entity of concern” restrictions so difficult to comply with that experts have said they amount to a “backdoor repeal.” Batteries, nuclear, and geothermal have a longer runway to claim the credits but would have to deal with the same unworkable foreign-entity strictures.
The bill is now being considered by House Republicans, who have set a self-imposed deadline of sending the bill to Trump’s desk by Friday. A previous version of the bill passed the House in May by just one vote.
Clean energy is the cheapest and easiest way to get power onto the grid. With demand for electricity nationwide rising due in large part to AI data centers, swiftly bringing affordable energy online is more crucial than ever.
But if tax incentives are repealed, fewer solar, wind, and storage projects will be built. Between now and 2035, the U.S. could see 57% to 72% less new clean-energy capacity come online than it would have with the tax credits in place, according to Rhodium Group. Meanwhile, new gas construction likely can’t make up the difference in the near term: Developers who want to build new gas power plants face wait times of up to five to seven years for turbines.
Rising power demand plus slower power-plant construction is a recipe for higher electricity bills.
Households and businesses in Wyoming, Illinois, and New Mexico would see the biggest jump in energy costs should the tax credits be repealed. Nationwide, electricity prices would increase by an average of 7.3% for households and 10.6% for businesses, worsening the increasingly steep energy costs Americans face.
The biggest loss, however, would be for attempts to decarbonize the U.S. power system. The Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S.’s first real stab at climate policy, had put the country nearly on track to cut carbon emissions in line with global climate commitments. Under this bill, however, U.S. efforts to move away from fossil fuels are certain to be slowed — even as the rest of the world speeds ahead toward clean power.
Canary Media’s “Electrified Life” column shares real-world tales, tips, and insights to demystify what individuals can do to shift their homes and lives to clean electric power.
As summer temperatures sizzle, are you frantically shopping for central air conditioning? Take a breather, because you could get AC functionality — and more — by opting for an increasingly popular appliance: a heat pump.
All-electric heat pumps are ACs, but better. Equipped with the ability to work in reverse, they not only dump heat outside in the summer, but can also pull heat indoors in the winter.
Heat pumps do often cost a bit more up front, but if you’re on the hunt for a new AC system anyway, the difference can be small enough that it’s worth exploring the option. After all, you could end up with AC and a shiny new heating system, to boot.
Should you join the growing share of households choosing heat pumps over mere ACs? Here are answers to key questions a prospective buyer is likely to have.
When sized right, heat pumps let you simultaneously meet your cooling needs and proactively upgrade your heating system to one that’s better for your health and, typically, your wallet in the long run.
For most households, these two-in-one appliances pay for themselves in reduced energy bills over their estimated 16-year lifetime.
Families that go from relying on expensive delivered fuels to electric heat pumps unlock the biggest cost savings: an average of $840 per year, according to electrification nonprofit Rewiring America. Households ditching gas heating can see an average of $60 in savings per year. Utility customers with access to electricity rates that favor heat pumps can save even more.
Other benefits? Heat pumps slash planet-warming pollution. Adopters report that the appliances produce more even, comfortable heat than gas systems. And unlike their fossil-fuel-burning counterparts, heat pumps don’t emit pollutants linked to asthma, cancer, and premature death.
Oh, and if you’re okay with air-handling units on your walls, a mini-split heat pump system can let you get AC without having to install pricey ductwork.
It’s tricky to find trustworthy data about the cost of central AC, home-energy marketplace EnergySage reports. But the general consensus is that heat pumps do come at a bit of a premium.
Here’s one example: In California, it costs between $900 and $1,900 more to replace a broken central AC with a heat pump instead of a conventional AC. That’s out of a median total heat-pump installation cost of $15,900, per data from the TECH Clean California program from July 2021 to April 2024.
But spending on a heat pump can mean avoiding the expense of getting a new furnace. Southern California’s air-quality agency recently found that installing a heat pump in a single-family home in the region typically costs $1,000 less than installing a gas furnace and AC.
Across the U.S., heat pump installations typically fall between $6,600 and $29,000, according to Rewiring America. That wide range is because project prices for heat pumps, like other HVAC equipment, can depend on a dizzying number of factors, including the size of your home, its energy demand, your local climate, the equipment efficiency rating, the state of your home’s electrical system, and how familiar your local labor market is with the product.
For now, there’s the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit, which can take up to $2,000 off your federal tax bill for a qualifying heat pump. But if Republicans’ “Big, Beautiful Bill” passes in its current form, that tax credit will disappear at the end of this year. (All the more reason to get one this summer.)
Income-qualified households can check with their state energy office about the availability of Home Energy Rebates, an $8.8 billion initiative created under the landmark 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Details vary by state, but the law established an $8,000 incentive for a heat pump, as well as rebates for enabling updates: $2,500 for electrical wiring and $4,000 for an electrical panel upgrade. While some state programs have rolled out after being finalized under the Biden administration, others still awaiting approvals are now stuck in limbo.
Separate state and local incentives may also be available. Ask your utility, Google, and reputable heat-pump contractors in your area. Rewiring America also has a handy calculator that provides information on electrification incentives for residents in 29 states, with more soon to come, a spokesperson said.
Get at least three quotes; the EnergySage marketplace can connect you to vetted local installers so you can compare offers. Some contractors specialize in home electrification — and might offer cutting-edge strategies to navigate a heat pump transition. Utility and local incentive programs may also have lists of participating installers.
But don’t stop there. See if there’s a local electrification group — like Go Electric Colorado, Electrify Oregon, or Go Electric DMV for D.C, Maryland, and Virginia — which can connect you to resources and friendly, knowledgeable electric coaches. Typically volunteers, they can offer free advice and recommend contractors they’ve worked with.
Ideally, you don’t want to find yourself in the sticky and sometimes downright dangerous situation of needing to get your AC replaced in an emergency. But if your AC has suddenly expired, you can give yourself more time to weigh your options by getting a “micro” heat pump as a stopgap measure.
Experts recommend drafting a road map for electrification upgrades in advance. Research contractors, costs, incentives, and logistics of other upgrades, like insulation and air-sealing or electrical system updates; your future self will thank you.
To help you on your electrification journey, Rewiring America offers a free, personalized planning tool, complete with estimated energy-bill impacts.
Changing your HVAC system is a big deal — and you don’t have to figure it out on your own. Got a question or story to share about choosing a heat pump over an AC, tackling another electrification project, or fully electrifying your home? I’d love to hear it! Reach out to me at takemura@canarymedia.com; my aim is to make the energy transition easier for you. Stay cool out there!
RENO, Nev. — I was supposed to be looking at the largest energy-storage installation ever assembled from used electric-vehicle batteries, the tantalizing new side project of former Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel’s recycling juggernaut, Redwood Materials. Instead, all I saw was a dusty field strewn with oddly shaped boxes wrapped in some kind of plastic sheeting. The boxes were propped up on cinder blocks, in the manner of rusted cars in a forgotten yard. It looked a bit like a garbage dump.
My Redwood tour guide assured me, however, that we were in the right place. Underneath those white shrouds were 792 individual EV battery packs, wired up in long rows and spread across two acres on the firm’s campus outside Reno, Nevada. The plastic wrapping was meant to protect them from the dust. Nearby was a field of solar panels laid flat on the ground, making it hard to gauge just how far back they went. These panels convert sunlight to electricity and store it in the array of old car batteries, to power a miniature data center that a startup named Crusoe built in the same field as the batteries. Any surplus power flows to Redwood’s own facilities surrounding the installation.
Redwood hailed the installation as a breakthrough in the sleepy field of second-life batteries, which has been around for a while but failed to move beyond initial proofs of concept to repeated, large-scale deployments. The firm has indeed broken a record for that stunted sector, certainly in the U.S. and likely the world, delivering 63 megawatt-hours of second-life grid storage in its own backyard. That’s a very deep reservoir of storage for the diminutive onsite data center, which has just 1 megawatt of computing load. The goal is to guarantee 24/7 clean power even with days of inclement weather.
Given the initial success, Straubel sees the energy storage business as a key growth area for Redwood, which was founded in 2017 to recycle battery materials into the domestic supply chain.
“This is, in a way, a first of its kind, and to be able to have a profitable project as a first one is pretty cool,” Straubel said prior to a sunset celebration of the project, held on the desert outcropping above it. “You will absolutely see much larger deployments of this in well under a year, and we are actively engineering and working on those projects today.”
Assuming the concept scales up further, it could be a game changer for data centers that prize speedy new energy construction. But it could further reshape the clean energy transition. Dozens of startups have toiled for years to invent new batteries for long-duration storage. Redwood has already beaten them to a large-scale deployment, without inventing anything new and risky — all it took was some clever reimagining of what others viewed as waste.
Using old EV batteries to store energy for the grid makes intuitive sense. Diminished battery capacity is a bigger deal for a vehicle than it is for grid storage; stationary stuff doesn’t need to work as hard as EV batteries, and it can take up a lot more space. A battery with just 80% of its original capacity left may get plucked from a vehicle, but it can still function fine for storing solar power. In theory, these secondhand batteries should be cheaper than new ones, reducing the cost of much-needed grid storage to accompany the rise of renewables.
Yet few second-life grid storage installations exist.
Most of the people who have actually installed second-life batteries have approached it as a small-scale research project, typically grant-funded. A scrappy company called B2U Storage Solutions broke that mold in 2020, when it built an array of old packs to deliver solar power into California’s energy markets in the most lucrative evening hours. I verified that with my own eyes in 2021, since it went far beyond the sector’s accomplishments at the time. B2U has since expanded the capacity to 28 megawatt-hours, but I haven’t seen a repeat project at that scale yet (though the company did build a 12-MWh project elsewhere in California).
Another startup called Element Energy obtained a bounty of lightly used packs, quite possibly through their investor LG, which endured a billion-dollar recall for units it supplied to General Motors a few years back. Element installed a couple dozen containers in West Texas last year, filled with 53 megawatt-hours of second-life storage. Next, it plans to build a factory to mass-produce enclosures for second-life installations.
Now, Redwood has entered the scene with its sprawling Nevada installation.
All of these developers have had to grapple with the same initial challenges. They need to get their hands on old EV packs and then sort out the ones that aren’t going to catch fire. Then they have to figure out how to safely control a patchwork fleet of batteries cobbled together from several manufacturers.
Redwood immediately stands out for its ability to handily source old packs. The company is, officially, a battery recycler, and it says it receives more old batteries than any of its U.S. competitors. All week long, trucks drop off pallets of everything from toothbrush batteries to electric-truck packs, which workers sort and stash in a 32-acre open-air depot. (Redwood says the safety benefits of super-dry air outweigh any risks associated with the bludgeoning Nevada sunshine.)
“If you ever used a lithium-ion battery, it’s probably going to end up coming through here in one way, shape, or form,” Straubel said. EV packs have been shooting up as a portion of total intake, from less than 1 gigawatt-hour per year in 2023 to more than 5 now, he added.
“That’s really one of the keys, is having the scale and having the access to the partnerships and the ability to move and transact and just physically harness that much material,” Straubel said.
Another differentiator might as well be called moxie. Founder Straubel sets the tone as a clean-energy nerd who just likes to give things a shot. He tried second-life microgrids at home before making it a focus for the workplace. His engineers hacked together a universal controller box that connects to each type of EV pack and operates it according to its unique needs. When the time came to test the concept, Straubel oversaw construction of the biggest second-life storage project in the world, all in five months from clearing ground to completion. No grant applications required.
Lastly, the Redwood approach bucks conventional opinion in ways that save time and money.
The storage industry, as a rule, puts its batteries in big metal boxes. Redwood engineers saw that as unnecessary, given how painstakingly ruggedized the packs had to be for vehicular use. No big boxes means no pouring concrete pads. The approach saves on labor, time, and materials.
“There’s almost no poured concrete, frankly — it’s a very light touch on the ground,” Straubel said. “You can pick up and move everything. You can deploy it very fast. Solar was the same way. We actually used this type of architecture specifically because we could deploy it very fast.”
On the solar side, Redwood went with a company that shares the “just throw it on the ground” mentality: Erthos, a scrappy new alternative to the highly engineered trackers that eke every last electron out of the day’s solar arc. This flat-on-the-ground installation also allows a handful of cleaning robots to circumnavigate the array daily and wipe the dust away; their little headlights peeked through the night as Redwood’s celebration cast laser lights across the battery field.
Redwood launched Redwood Energy, its business line for second-life storage, at a precarious time for the battery recycling industry, which has promised to recover nearly all the useful materials from old EV batteries.
Redwood succeeded in raising nearly $2 billion in equity investment since its founding in 2017. It seems to have plenty of resources for the time being. But a leading competitor, Li-Cycle, declared bankruptcy this year after failing to raise the money to complete its recycling facility in upstate New York. Another top contender, Ascend Elements, has pushed back its timeline for a facility in Kentucky, citing delays from its anchor customer.
The actual task of economically recovering the most valuable battery materials appears to have proven harder in practice than it looked in the pitch decks. Setting aside the technical challenges, there are serious business obstacles. Many key battery commodities have fallen steeply from high prices a few years back, undercutting the value of the recycled products. And there isn’t yet a critical mass of cathode makers to sell to in the U.S., so any recovered materials are just going to generic metals markets for now.
“In a way, we started Redwood almost too early,” Straubel admitted. He was talking about how used EV packs were hard to come by a few years ago. But Redwood and the other recyclers are also now too early for the domestic EV-battery-materials market they would like to sell into.
While that market for recycled materials develops, Redwood can pull in “almost an order of magnitude” more value from its batteries by deploying them for energy storage needs.
“Every battery that we can possibly redeploy, even for as short as a few months, we see a compelling financial case to do that,” Straubel said. In fact, he noted, “This definitely has the potential to grow faster and even to contribute more revenue than the core recycling business.”
That’s somewhat jarring to hear from the battery recycling startup with the most money behind it. The investors funded a battery materials business, not a second-hand battery purveyor. But Straubel stressed that he sees the energy business as additive, not competitive with the original business.
“We’re not getting rid of that material — we’re actually keeping ownership of it,” he said. “We’re keeping the rights to recycle it, and we’re excited to recycle it when it’s done doing its second life in energy storage.”
Redwood Energy is talking with AI customers around the country, but it’s also well-positioned in a desert valley east of Reno that has become something of an industrial and telecom hub. A particularly energetic trick-or-treater could leave Redwood’s campus and knock on the doors of Google, Apple, and Switch, the owner of a fortress-like data center. Microsoft just acquired 300 acres in the neighborhood.
“Those would be logical targets,” Straubel allowed.
A clarification was made on July 7, 2025: This article has been updated to clarify that B2U built a 12-MWh second-life storage facility in California, in addition to its initial 28-MWh installation.
State legislators pushing to unravel North Carolina’s climate law say their bill will give utility Duke Energy more leeway to build new gas and nuclear power plants and save its Tar Heel customers billions of dollars.
But Gov. Josh Stein disagrees: He vetoed Senate Bill 266 on Wednesday, prompted by data showing that the legislation would cost households and slow the state’s energy buildout. The GOP-sponsored measure would repeal a requirement that Duke slash carbon pollution 70% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, while leaving a 2050 carbon-neutrality deadline intact.
“This summer’s record heat and soaring utility bills has shown that we need to focus on lowering electricity costs for working families — not raising them,” Stein, a Democrat, said in a statement. “My job is to do everything in my power to lower costs and grow the economy. This bill fails that test.”
In issuing his veto, Stein pointed to a new study from researchers at North Carolina State University, which builds on projections from the state customer advocate, Public Staff. That modeling showed SB 266 could cause Duke to build less generation capacity over the next decade, just as electricity needs are expected to surge.
That means Duke would have to lean harder on aging plants and burn almost 40% more natural gas between 2030 and 2050, experts at N.C. State University say. Under a worst-case but plausible scenario for gas prices, customers could pay $23 billion more on their electric bills by midcentury as a result.
“As our state continues to grow, we need to diversify our energy portfolio so that we are not overly reliant on natural gas and its volatile fuel markets,” Stein said.
A complex measure that’s faced little public debate, SB 266 easily cleared both chambers of the Republican-controlled General Assembly in June with a handful of Democratic votes. With Stein’s action, advocates now turn their focus back to state lawmakers, who are on break for at least another week. The GOP has the three-fifths majority needed to override the veto in the Senate, but is one member shy of that margin in the House.
“Governor Stein is championing working families all across North Carolina who would be harmed by this new law,” said Will Scott, Southeast climate and clean energy director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “Legislators should reconsider the harmful consequences of this law for the working families in their districts.”
The N.C. State study underscores a surprising finding from Public Staff’s modeling: SB 266 does little to prepare North Carolina for ballooning electricity needs expected from an influx of data centers, manufacturers, and new residents. In fact, removing the 2030 goal would prompt Duke to build 11,700 fewer megawatts of new power plants in the next decade than its current plans.
“In talking with legislators, I found that almost all of them emphasized economic growth and the need for power generation to meet that demand,” said Scott. “But Public Staff’s analysis found that the most likely short-term impact of SB 266 is to build less new generation and storage and instead to lean harder on aging coal and gas facilities.”
The Public Staff forecast shows renewable energy would be the main short-term casualty of SB 266, just as its backers intend. By 2035, Duke would construct 7,200 fewer megawatts of solar and battery storage, and no offshore or onshore wind farms whatsoever — a 4,500-megawatt decrease compared with the status quo.
But new “always-on” nuclear and gas resources — the same ones SB 266 champions seek to promote — would also suffer. Without a near-term carbon reduction deadline, Public Staff says Duke would develop just 300 megawatts of nuclear power in the next decade, half as much as it currently plans. The utility would build 1,400 fewer megawatts of large, efficient combined-cycle gas units.
Only gas “peaker plants” — simple-cycle combustion turbines that are relatively cheap to build but expensive to operate — would become more abundant, Public Staff forecasts. Duke would build 3,800 megawatts’ worth instead of 2,100.
The model’s underlying assumptions haven’t been made public. But experts say the reason for this short-term impact is likely that without a carbon constraint, it’s simply cheaper to run existing coal and gas plants more often than it is to build new ones.
The same Public Staff study predicts that removing the 2030 target would yield $13 billion in present value in customer savings by 2050 — a figure much vaunted by SB 266 supporters.
But detractors have long pointed out that the discount comes from avoided construction costs only and doesn’t account for the price of fuel, 100% of which is passed to utility customers through a “rider” on monthly bills.
As it happens, the $23 billion in added fuel costs estimated by N.C. State translates to $13 billion in present value.
“That is a pure coincidence,” said Jeremiah Johnson, one of the researchers. “It completely negates the claimed savings.”
Duke might also have to buy more power from utilities in neighboring states to meet electricity needs, another blow to residential consumers, who under SB 266 would pay a higher fraction of those costs than they do today.
“This bill not only makes everyone’s utility bills more expensive,” Stein said, “but it also shifts the cost of electricity from large industrial users onto the backs of regular people — families will pay more so that industry pays less.”
Advocates also point to the simple public health rationale for keeping the state’s 2030 pollution-reduction goal intact. Relying on existing coal and gas plants instead of building more solar means millions of tons more climate pollution released into the atmosphere every year, plus pollutants that lead to smog and soot.
Then, there’s the commonsense argument, said Matt Abele, executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association: “You don’t establish a 30-year goal without milestones along the way.” Achieving emissions reductions is like saving enough money for retirement — it takes planning and can’t be done in just a couple of years. “These things do not happen overnight,” he said.
Abele’s group analyzed the 24 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, with zero-carbon targets around the middle of the century. Just one, Nebraska, lacks any sort of interim goal.
The reason, according to state Rep. Maria Cervania, a Democrat from Wake County who voted against SB 266? “Deadlines matter.”
At a news conference last week, she said that the 2030 goal has given “us a clear, science-based target to hold the utilities accountable. … Without it, progress slows and polluters face no urgency to act.”
An update was made on July 2, 2025: This story has been updated to reflect that Gov. Stein vetoed SB 266 after this story was published.
2025 is a pivotal moment for climate action. Countries are submitting new climate commitments, otherwise known as "nationally determined contributions" or "NDCs," that will shape the trajectory of global climate progress through 2035.
These new commitments will show how boldly countries plan to cut their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, transform their economies, and strengthen resilience to growing threats like extreme weather, wildfires and floods. Collectively, they will determine how far the world goes toward limiting global temperature rise and avoiding the worst climate impacts.
A few countries, such as the U.S., U.K. and Brazil, have already put forward new climate plans — and their ambition is a mixed bag. But it's still early: Many more countries, including major emitters like the EU and China, have yet to reveal their NDCs and are expected to do so in the coming months.
We analyzed the initial submissions for a snapshot of how countries' climate plans are shaping up so far and what they reveal about the road ahead.
A decade ago, the world was headed toward 3.7-4.8 degrees C (6.7-8.6 degrees F) of warming by 2100, threatening catastrophic weather, devastating biodiversity loss and widespread economic disruptions. In response, the Paris Agreement set a global goal: limit temperature rise to well below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and strive to limit it to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), thresholds scientists say can significantly lessen climate hazards. Though some impacts are inevitable — with extreme heat, storms, fires and floods already worsening — lower levels of warming dramatically reduce their severity. Every fraction of a degree matters.
To keep the Paris Agreement's temperature goals within reach, countries agreed to submit new NDCs every five years. These national plans detail how (and how much) each country will cut emissions, how they'll adapt to climate impacts like droughts and rising seas, and what support they'll need to deliver on those efforts.
Countries have gone through two rounds of NDCs so far, in 2015 and 2020-2021, with their commitments extending through 2030.
While the latest NDCs cut emissions more deeply than those from 2015, they still fall short of the ambition needed to hold warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees C. If fully implemented (including measures that require international support), they could bring down projected warming to 2.6-2.8 degrees C (4.7-5 degrees F). And without stronger policies to meet countries' targets, the world could be heading for a far more dangerous 3.1 degrees C (5.6 degrees F) of warming by 2100.
Now the third round is underway, with countries expected to set climate targets through 2035.
These new NDCs are expected to reflect the outcomes of the 2023 Global Stocktake, which was the first comprehensive assessment of global climate progress under the Paris Agreement. In addition to bigger emissions cuts in line with holding warming to 1.5 degrees C, the Stocktake called on countries to act swiftly in areas that matter most for addressing the climate crisis — especially fossil fuels, renewables, transport and forests — and to do more to build resilience to climate impacts.
2025 NDCs are also an opportunity to align near-term climate action with longer-term goals. Over 100 countries have already pledged to reach net-zero emissions, most by around mid-century. Their new NDCs should chart a course toward achieving this.
Under the Paris Agreement's timeline, 2025 NDCs were technically due in February. As of early June, only a small proportion of countries had submitted them, covering around a quarter of global emissions.
These early movers include a diverse mix of developed and developing nations from different regions and economic backgrounds.
Among the G20 — the world's largest GHG emitters — only five countries submitted new NDCs so far: Canada, Brazil, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. (Since submitting its NDC, the U.S. announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.)
Several smaller and highly climate-vulnerable countries have also stepped forward, including Ecuador and Uruguay in Latin America; Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa; and island states such as Singapore, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives.
That means close to 90% of countries have yet to submit their new NDCs.
There are several reasons for this. The last round of NDCs was pushed back by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, giving countries only four years to prepare new plans. Geopolitical tensions, ongoing conflicts and security concerns have further complicated progress. Many smaller developing nations are also facing capacity constraints as they work to complete biennial climate progress reports and new national adaptation plans (NAPs), also due this year.
Most countries are now expected to present their new NDCs by the UN General Assembly in September.
Compared to previous targets, the NDCs submitted so far have made a noticeable but modest dent in the 2035 "emissions gap": the difference between where emissions need to be in 2035 to align with 1.5 degrees C and where they're expected to be under countries' new climate plans.
If fully implemented, new NDCs are projected to reduce emissions by 1.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2035 when compared to 2030. Looking only at unconditional NDCs (those that don't require international support), this leaves a remaining emissions gap of 29.5 GtCO2e to hold warming to 1.5 degrees C. When conditional NDCs (those that do require international support) are included, this gap shrinks to 26.1 GtCO2e.
Much of the progress in narrowing the gap comes from major emitters that have already submitted new NDCs — most notably the U.S., Japan and Brazil. Given their large emissions profiles, their new commitments account for the majority of the reductions seen so far.
While this marks progress, it's far from what's needed to keep global warming within safe limits. Getting on track to 1.5 or even 2 degrees C would require much steeper cuts than what's currently on the table.
However, this is not the full picture.
Many of the world's largest emitters have yet to submit their 2035 targets. The remaining G20 countries alone account for about two-thirds of global GHG emissions. This makes their forthcoming NDCs especially important: The scale and ambition of these commitments could meaningfully narrow the emissions gap — or, if they fall short, leave the world locked into a trajectory that puts global temperature targets out of reach.
Among the countries that have submitted new NDCs so far, the United Kingdom stands out for its ambitious climate trajectory. Following the recommendations of its Climate Change Committee, the U.K. has set a bold target to reduce emissions 81% by 2035 from 1990 levels. This rapid decline in the coming decade would put the country on track toward its net zero goal by 2050, based on realistic rates of technology deployment and ambitious but achievable shifts in consumer and business behavior.
Other countries, such as Japan and the United States, have opted for a "linear" approach toward net zero — meaning if they drew a straight line to their net-zero target (for example, 0 GtCO2e in 2050), their 2030 and 2035 targets would fall along it, reflecting a constant decline in emissions each year. Japan aims to cut emissions 60% from 2013 levels by 2035, while the United States has pledged a 61%-66% reduction from 2005 levels by 2035.
Despite the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, undermining climate policies and attempting to dismantle key government institutions, its NDC target may still provide a framework for climate action at the state, city and local levels, as well as for future administrations. Many of these entities have already rallied around the new NDC and are committed to making progress toward its targets.
However, the linear approach Japan and the U.S. are taking to emissions reductions — as opposed to a steeper decline this decade — risks using up a larger share of the world's carbon budget earlier and compromising global temperature targets.
Brazil presented a broader range of emissions targets in its NDC, committing to a 59%-67% reduction by 2035 from 2005 levels. These two poles represent a marked difference in ambition: A 67% reduction could put Brazil on track for climate neutrality by 2050, while a 59% reduction falls short of what's needed to meet that goal. It is unclear which trajectory the government intends to pursue, leaving Brazil's true ambition in question. The NDC also omits carbon budgets for specific sectors (such as energy, transport or agriculture), which would clarify how it plans to meet its overarching emissions goals. However, Brazil committed within its NDC to develop further plans outlining how each sector will contribute to its 2035 target.
Elsewhere, Canada made only a marginal increase to its target, shifting from a 40%-45% emissions reduction by 2030 to 45%-50% by 2035 from 2005 levels. This falls short of the recommendation from Canada's own Net-Zero Advisory Body, which called for a 50%-55% reduction by 2035 — and warned that anything below 50% risks derailing progress toward the country's legislated net-zero goal by 2050. While every increase in ambition counts, such incremental changes do not match the urgent pace of progress needed among developed and wealthy economies like Canada.
The ocean makes up nearly 70% of the planet’s surface, bursting with rich biodiversity and natural resources that are vital for both the climate and economies. Yet, beyond national coastlines, protecting much of the ocean has long been a murky endeavor.
For nearly 20 years, governments, scientists and ocean advocates have worked toward securing a global treaty to protect marine life in the ocean areas that lie beyond countries’ individual jurisdictions. These vast, mostly unregulated waters, known as the high seas, hold huge importance to the health of the planet.
Finally, in June 2023, the 193 member states of the United Nations adopted the landmark Treaty for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ agreement), under the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS).
Though the text of what is commonly known as the “High Seas Treaty,” has been agreed, the story is far from over. By the conclusion of the third UN Ocean Conference, 51 parties had ratified the treaty with more pledging to follow, putting the treaty within reach of the 60 needed to put it into force. Once ratified, it will trigger a 120-day countdown, leading to the first Conference of Parties (BBNJ COP) that will determine how the treaty is fully implemented.
The ambition of the High Seas Treaty has always been immense. Roughly two-thirds of the ocean lies outside any single country’s jurisdiction, forming a collective space teeming with life from microscopic plankton to colossal blue whales.
The high seas are also home to lucrative natural resources, which countries and companies increasingly seek to explore and exploit, such as critical minerals needed for EV batteries and other low carbon technologies and marine genetic materials that are increasingly sought after to support pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and other innovations.
Yet, without a binding treaty, the high seas are governed patchwork-style through regional fisheries agreements, shipping conventions and scattered marine protected areas. This leaves critical gaps in protecting marine biodiversity or ensuring developing countries are also benefiting from discoveries made in international water.
When ratified, the High Seas Treaty will fill critical regulatory gaps and complement national efforts. It will help to guide regional cooperation and link seamlessly to sustainable ocean plans for national waters already being delivered by member countries of the High Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel) and future plans through the 100% Alliance. Together, they will weave a comprehensive net of ocean stewardship from coastlines to open ocean.
In 2023, countries compromised on four core pillars of the BBNJ agreement:
The treaty will create a mechanism to establish marine protected areas (MPAs) and other conservation management tools on the high seas. MPAs are typically clearly defined geographical spaces, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to conserve marine biodiversity and ecosystems.
Many MPAs on the high seas already exist. For example, in 2010, six MPAs were established in the Northeast Atlantic with a total area of 286,200 square kilometers (110,502 square miles) and in 2016, the Ross Sea MPA with a total area of 1.5 million square kilometers (600,000 square miles) was established in the Southern Ocean.
The treaty will also establish a process for proposing new zones for protection via a consultation process, supported by scientific evidence.
The treaty will also establish rules for sharing financial and non-financial benefits from the commercial application of genetic material sourced from high-seas marine organisms — such as bacteria, corals or deep-sea sponges — that can be used in medicine, cosmetics, food, and biotechnology. These innovations hold huge potential benefits for human health and wellbeing.
The High Seas Treaty also supports sharing technology and knowledge developments, particularly to low-income countries that need and request it for conservation and sustainable use to ensure they participate fully in high seas governance.
The treaty will create a process for countries or companies proposing high seas activities — such as deep sea mining in areas beyond national borders — to conduct assessments and follow international standards, that can be shared transparently.
By the conclusion of UN Oceans Conference on June 13, the treaty had 136 signatories and was ratified by 51, just nine shy of the 60 parties needed to put the treaty into force. Those ratifying the treaty include island states such as Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica and the Maldives; the European Union and some of its members including France, Portugal and Spain; and other nations such as Chile, Norway and South Korea. (Track the signatories and parties on the UN website here.)
Starting in the early 2000s, the United Nations began informal discussions on how to close the regulatory gaps over how to manage the high seas, wrangling over how to share the benefits of its natural resources while ensuring necessary protections. But the very complexity of coordinating nearly 200 countries meant progress was often incremental, alternately buoyed by breakthroughs and bogged down by competing interests.
The slow ratification progress highlights both the strengths and limitations of international diplomacy. On the one hand, global consensus ensures that the resulting High Seas Treaty creates a single set of rules for all high-seas users. On the other hand, aligning the diverse interests of small island states, distant water fishing nations and environmental non-profit organizations is inherently time-consuming. Each negotiating text must thread the needle between these interests, with every word or comma potentially sparking months of debate.
Moreover, the decision-making processes of the UN, anchored in principles of sovereign equality and consensus-building, can struggle to keep pace with the urgent, evolving threats that marine ecosystems face: like the increasing demand for deep-sea minerals, growing plastic pollution and overfishing practices. By the time a treaty is finalized, new pressures may emerge, requiring fresh rounds of technical and legal work.
Countries, operating within their own jurisdictions — also known as exclusive economic zones, which extend 200 nautical miles from a country’s coastline — can make more immediate progress on conservation and climate initiatives. For example, Ocean Panel members are sustainably managing 100% of their national waters. The process for developing these holistic sustainable ocean plans, while not simple, has been faster than multilateral processes. Ocean Panel members are now calling on all coastal and ocean states to replicate this success in their own national waters by 2030 by joining the 100% Alliance.
At this month’s UNOC, it’s expected that many UN member states will announce either their signing or ratification of the High Seas Treaty. However, for it to be effective, it is crucial that the underlying framework and governance structures are agreed upon before coming into force. The BBNJ Preparatory Commission (BBNJ PrepCom) hopes to fill this gap: shaping the treaty operations and preparing for the first BBNJ COP.
Governments and negotiators are hoping to develop key recommendations to shape the critical elements of the treaty. This includes forming governing structures; outlining the roles and responsibilities of institutions such as those that provide data, and scientific and technical advice; creating tools and mechanisms to ensure equitable implementation of the treaty; and establishing systems to ensure funding and technical knowledge is distributed so all member states can fully participate.
The first BBNJ COP will see these recommendations brought forward and hopefully adopted. It is critical therefore that these meetings are constructive and that a consensus is reached. Only with the relevant governing and financial mechanisms in place can this High Seas Treaty go from a landmark agreement to a fully functioning international treaty that protects the global ocean.
Management of the ocean needs to be as interconnected as the ocean itself. By weaving together national actions with a robust global treaty, the world can ensure a resilient, equitable and thriving ocean for generations to come.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on June 5, 2025 and updated on June 17,2025 to reflect new information about the countries who have signed and ratified the treaty.
This story was originally co-published by Floodlight and The Texas Tribune.
Whisper Valley is a peek into what the future could look like.
The sweeping community in the Austin, Texas, suburb of Manor is filled with modern homes, small manicured lawns, quiet streets, and rooftops outfitted with solar panels. Hidden beneath it is a network of pipes and man-made reservoirs that heat and cool hundreds of households via geothermal technology — a source that currently provides less than 1% of the U.S. electrical demand.
When completed, Whisper Valley will consist of approximately 7,500 owner-occupied and rental homes and multifamily units ranging in price from $350,000 to $750,000; three schools; 2 million square feet of commercial space; and 700 acres of park and outdoor community spaces. Habitat for Humanity is set to build affordable housing, which will hook up to the geothermal network.
Zac Turov, business development manager for EcoSmart Solutions, which runs the community’s geothermal system, says savings on utility bills for residents here with geothermal-powered heat pumps that cool and heat buildings can run up to $2,000 a year — based on a third-party-verified Home Energy Rating System.
Michael Wilt has lived in the community for six years, moving into his three-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot house during the first phase of Whisper Valley’s development.
He says he’s never had utility costs higher than $70 during the summer months or $45 a month during the winter. That doesn’t count the $60 monthly fee he pays to EcoSmart in operation fees.
“It absolutely works better than the HVAC system I had in the house that I was renting before purchasing the house,” Wilt, 47, said.
“The geothermal system was definitely part of the appeal, but really it was kind of the entire ‘agrihood’ feeling of the whole development,” he added, referring to places that are “intentional” about incorporating green infrastructure into the neighborhood and individual homes.
Developer Michael Thurman has built 30 of the more than 600 homes in this massive mixed-use development. And his company, Thurman Homes, is set to build up to 50 more.
The developer calls geothermal a commonsense way to preserve the planet by cutting the use of fossil fuels to power the homes and businesses here. Heating, cooling, and providing electricity to residential and commercial buildings accounts for about 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The community sits 15 miles northeast of Austin. It’s an area home to multiple tech companies, including Google, Tesla, Dell, Samsung, and Applied Materials.
But not all of the developers building in Whisper Valley tap into its geothermal system.
The reason, said Thurman, is money. It costs approximately $40,000 per home to install the heat pumps and hook up to the geothermal network.
“We can’t keep doing the same things,” Thurman said, referring to the imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “This isn’t tough to do, but you have to have core values that make you want to do it.”
Geothermal is more expensive than other forms of renewable energy, including wind and solar, according to new estimates from the consulting firm Lazard.
“The goal is for all the developers who build here to use geothermal,” Turov said. “But it’s still a tough sale.”
Drilling advancements have expanded how and where geothermal technology can be used for heating and cooling individual buildings — and broader power generation.
“The thing is: It is hot everywhere underground,” said Drew Nelson, vice president of programs, policy, and strategy at the Houston-based, geothermal-focused nonprofit Project Innerspace. “Today, with the advances in modern drilling, we are now able to tap into that heat almost anywhere.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates there is enough next-generation geothermal potential to power the world 140 times over. And Nelson says the United States has the most potential to be a leader in the industry, with countries including China and India also having the resources to generate geothermal power.
“As more projects are implemented, costs will continue to come down,” Nelson said, noting the IEA analysis also predicts geothermal in coming years will be “competitive with solar and wind paired with battery storage.”
Using underground water reservoirs for heating and cooling or to generate electricity isn’t new. But until recently it was mostly confined to specific regions where it was easier to drill into hot water reservoirs — like in Iceland or California.
As of 2021, geothermal was concentrated in Western states, with California and Nevada accounting for more than 90% of the country’s geothermal power production, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Geothermal is one of the cleanest ways to produce electricity. And it is the only renewable energy technology that has largely stayed out of the crosshairs of President Donald Trump, who has slashed federal support for renewable and clean energy, including wind and solar.
“One of the reasons President Trump really likes geothermal right now is that it’s all American,” said Bryant Jones, executive director of Geothermal Rising, a California-based nonprofit that advocates for the industry internationally. “It’s local. It’s a way to help rural America figure out their own economies as they transition from one technology to another.”
Geothermal tax credits — for both developers and for homeowners who install heat pumps — helped Whisper Valley thrive in its infancy.
However, industry insiders are ringing the alarms and pressuring the U.S. Congress to not eliminate clean energy tax credits and incentives included in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. If those tax credits are phased out, insiders say it would cripple the industry before it has a chance to get on its feet.
While billions in federal funding for wind, solar, and other clean energy technology are on the chopping block, the budget bill mulled by Senate Republicans currently would retain tax credits for geothermal, nuclear, and hydropower projects that begin construction by 2033.
The U.S. Department of Energy did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether it would continue to support geothermal through federal funding and tax incentives, as it did under the previous administration.
“We do need the tax credits for geothermal energy to be maintained,” Jones said. “Geothermal doesn’t have a technology problem, it has a policy problem. [It’s] been around for over 100 years, [but] it hasn’t had the policy support the way the oil and gas industry has, or the nuclear industry, and most recently, the solar and wind industry.”
Traditionally, geothermal was limited to places with naturally occurring underground hot reservoirs, usually near tectonic plates or in volcanic areas.
But evolutions in geothermal have opened the door for developers to utilize oil and gas drilling technologies which help lower costs and allow them to create their own reservoirs almost anywhere. The models fall in two categories: enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS, and closed-loop geothermal systems like the one in Whisper Valley.
With EGS systems, developers create artificial underground reservoirs through hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” and then inject water or other fluids into a well. The water is heated as it moves through hot rocks and is then pumped up into a separate production well to generate energy.
Closed-loop systems use an underground network of sealed wells where water or fluid is pumped and heated without ever coming in direct contact with rocks. It is then piped into the homes and buildings connected to the system. These systems also cool buildings by drawing out heat during warm weather.
“The more that people learn about geothermal,” Jones said, “the more obsessed they become.”
He says geothermal’s appeal includes a low carbon footprint, reliability, and established drilling technology pioneered by the oil and gas industry. Unlike batteries and wind power, geothermal does not rely on critical minerals whose supply can be disrupted by geopolitical events.
It’s also among the more expensive energy sources because it requires specialized drilling, installation equipment, and skilled workers trained to build it all. Supporters say the industry will continue to need federal tax credits and funding to grow, especially in communities where utility bills are already unaffordable.
While many geothermal units serve just a single household, systems that serve many buildings are more affordable.
“A way to address that is through thermal energy networks, or geothermal district networks,” Jones said, referring to connecting multiple homes and buildings, which means “the cost goes down for everybody.“
He cites Framingham, Massachusetts, where one utility, Eversource, is providing geothermal energy for roughly 140 residential and commercial customers in one neighborhood. After the two-year pilot project ends, customers can return to natural gas, also known as methane, or continue using geothermal, the company says.
“We are still collecting data as we enter the start of the cooling season, but over the winter we saw strong system performance even during the January and February cold snaps,” said Olessa Stepanova, spokesperson for Eversource.
Stepanova says the company expects to have insight into energy savings from the project within a year from when each customer is connected to the geothermal system. And the utility is in final negotiations with the DOE and state to expand the network.
“This would not only demonstrate the scalability of networked geothermal systems,” she added, “but also how they become more cost-effective as they are expanded.”
Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy Geothermal Technologies Office awarded a total of $37.7 million to five cities to install district-scale geothermal heating and cooling systems.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, was awarded the most money, $10 million, which the city is using to build and operate a community geothermal system. It is projected to provide heating and cooling to 262 homes, a local elementary school, and community center in the Bryant neighborhood. The predominantly minority, lower-income area seeks to become the most sustainable neighborhood in the United States.
“It’s a neighborhood that has been disinvested in, and as we were working on our climate goals to be carbon neutral, we wanted to do that in a just and equitable way,” said Missy Stults, director of the city’s Office of Sustainability and Innovations.
Stults says some households in the community shell out up to 30% of their income on utility bills.
“We started to think about what’s a sustainable source of heating that we could look at that helps maintain affordability for everyone [and] that’s clean,” Stults said. “And so geothermal was one thing that came up, and the residents were really interested in it.”
Stults says it’ll likely be a year before the city starts drilling — and that’s only if Congress or the Trump administration keeps the federal funding in place. The city has been “sort of treading water” since Trump announced freezes on various renewable energy program spending. As of June, Stults says the grant had not been terminated, but the funding still hadn’t been allocated to move their project forward.
“Our hope is that [the project] will align with the administration’s goals,” she said. “This is American-made energy. It’s our grounds, our soil. It’s pretty powerful.”
As a selling point, Thurman uses the utility bills for his model home in Whisper Valley and compares them with other homes of the same size he built with traditional HVAC systems.
For the three-bedroom,1,800-square-foot home he built in Whisper Valley, utility bills in June and August 2023 were $42.16 and $74.54, respectively. A home the same size he built using an HVAC system had bills in those same two months of $233 and $326, respectively.
Turov says some developers have opted to build homes in Whisper Valley that use traditional HVAC systems instead of geothermal.
“Developers are reluctant to innovate, usually because it costs more, even though there are great benefits from using the technology,” he said. “We might have to make it work without [federal] subsidies, which will be a challenge but could be good for the long-term viability of the technology in the United States.”
EcoSmart Solutions successfully lobbied Texas state lawmakers for changes in state law and initiatives that can help geothermal grow there — with or without federal subsidies. They include measures that cut drilling regulations for geothermal projects, allow such systems to be added to the electric grid and pave the way for financing through bonds and “special purpose” taxing districts.
Turov explains that such districts allow developers to install infrastructure such as lights, roads, and water systems, the cost of which is then repaid by owners on their property tax bills.
“I think right now, we’re in the first adopter stage,” Turov said. “And that’ll probably still be the case for the next few years. And then I think more and more people will adopt it.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government, and statewide issues.
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