The transition to renewable energy is hanging on Harris being elected

From HEATED:

"Here’s the good(-ish) news: as long as Trump doesn’t touch tax credits for wind, solar, and battery storage, the analysis says his presidency should only have a “limited” negative impact on the energy transition: 25 gigawatts (GW) fewer renewables than under a business-as-usual scenario by 2040.

But here’s the bad news: if Trump does repeal those tax credits—as both he and Project 2025 have proposed—the analysis says a “significant slowdown in the pace of the energy transition” would occur.

Specifically, a Trump presidency could hinder solar, wind, and battery deployment by 212 GW by 2040 if tax credits are ended next year, according to the report.

212 GW is, for context, a huge amount of renewable energy development to lose out on. It is enough to power 159 million homes—more than all the homes in the U.S."

— Emily Atkin and Arielle Samuelson, How bad could Trump be for renewables? A previously unreported study predicts a massive decrease in solar, wind, and battery development if Trump adopts just one proposal in Project 2025., HEATED, Oct 24, 2024

Read my article: Project 2025 won't listen to climate scientists, August 12, 2024 - 8 min read on Medium

Project 2025 Annotation: A Summary. "EDGI’s Environmental Historians Action Collaborative working group annotated select sections of Project 2025, placing its environmental messages and proposals within their larger political and historical contexts."

The climate stakes of the Harris-Trump election From public health to public lands, here are 15 ways the next president could affect the climate and your life, Grist Staff, October 26, 2024

We've got a polycrisis in the Permian. Air pollution, climate pollution and water pollution. All directly related to oil production. We were assured this would never happen. "In theory, injection wells fill confined formations, and their contents never escape." The theories aren't holding up.

[image or embed]

— Oilfield Witness (@oilfieldwitness.bsky.social) October 29, 2024 at 8:15 AM

The same robust science that tells us that +CO₂ is a growing risk & that stratospheric aerosols *might* reduce some of those risks in the near future, also shows that you can’t simply keep increasing CO₂ for ever and cancel it out. GHGs reduction must still be fast and total.

[image or embed]

— Dan Visioni (@danvisioni.bsky.social) November 3, 2024 at 10:54 AM

OMG, what! [reads first paragraphs] Oooooooohhhhhhhhh www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

[image or embed]

— Ketan Joshi (@ketanjoshi.co) November 3, 2024 at 5:25 PM

🚨 New SHIFT KEY alert 🚨 @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social and @jessejenkins.bsky.social sit down with Secretary Jennifer Granholm to reflect on her years heading up the Department of Energy, and forecast our clean energy future. Listen to the full episode below.

[image or embed]

— Heatmap News (@heatmap.news) December 18, 2024 at 10:20 AM

FFS. We have lost our collective minds. -- "focus on AI data centers that consume at least one gigawatt of electricity, roughly the amount used by a city of 1 million residents" -- "allow construction of dedicated power plants fueled by natural gas at the same sites..." (1/2) wapo.st/4gqvudA

[image or embed]

— Climate Disconnect (@climate-disconnect.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 8:18 AM

More reasons to be anti-AI

[image or embed]

— Harper 🔜 HHN '25 🦇 (@2manystripes.bsky.social) September 7, 2025 at 12:29 AM

The world’s most powerful supercomputer outside of the US is built to find more oil and gas. Full steam ahead for fossil fuels - thanks, AI!

[image or embed]

— Hannah Daly (@hannahdaly.ie) December 26, 2024 at 6:32 AM

The expansion of AI data centers and a rush to export fracked gas is rapidly reshaping the energy landscape.

[image or embed]

— Truthout (@truthout.org) December 27, 2024 at 3:49 PM

dear journalists - want to follow up my reporting on the movement in Oklahoma to ban all renewable energy? here’s a full video of the rally for the ban at the state capitol yesterday youtu.be/DYQxBaUhSwU

[image or embed]

— jael holzman 🤍 (@jael.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:46 PM

scoop: will oklahoma be the first state to ban renewable energy? its becoming increasingly likely. as investments from the inflation reduction act flow into red states, we're seeing backlash. republicans are disliking renewables *more* than before. cc @heatmap.news heatmap.news/plus/the-fig...

[image or embed]

— jael holzman 🤍 (@jael.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 1:32 PM

Data centers create "heat islands." (March 2026)

What will the future of the warming stripes be? 2024 could be the start of a stabilisation of global temperatures, or it might appear to be a cool year. Which one of these stories becomes reality depends on our choices today, and every day until then. We are likely to regret not acting sooner.

[image or embed]

— Ed Hawkins (@edhawkins.org) January 10, 2025 at 6:13 AM

Project 2025 mentioned the National Science Foundation as having too much to do with "an all-encompassing technology transition," and now:

I’m an NSF panel reviewer that was scheduled to meet today. Just got notice that all NSF panels were canceled today. I reviewed some innovative proposals in support of students. Devastating if these scholars don’t get to do this work. For the love of science & students I hope this is just a delay.💔

— Christina Areizaga Barbieri, Ph.D. (@cabarbieri.bsky.social) January 27, 2025 at 9:45 AM

The Next Front of Trump’s Renewables War Is Contract Law: And that’s on top of the constitutional questions. Robinson Meyer, Heatmap, February 12, 2025

My main takeaway from the new IEA report: Clean energy is accelerating like crazy, but it's still not enough to actually reduce climate pollution. Emissions are still rising as energy demand rises, including for coal, oil, and gas. It's not enough to add clean. We also have to subtract dirty.

[image or embed]

— Kevin J. Kircher (@kevinjkircher.com) March 24, 2025 at 6:44 AM

May 20, 2025: Trump's energy bill may raise costs 7% (HEATED)

‘Throwing us off a cliff': Megabill could derail hundreds of planned clean energy projects www.politico.com/news/2025/06... POLITICO analysis: 794 planned clean electricity generation facilities — 3/4 in GOP districts — that could lose subsidies under the House bill. The Senate is debating changes.

[image or embed]

— Jesse D. Jenkins (@jessedjenkins.com) June 19, 2025 at 1:31 PM

How renewables save Texans enormous amounts of money. The buildout of solar in TX reduced the wholesale price of energy by 50%. #energysky open.substack.com/pub/theclima...

[image or embed]

— Andrew Dessler (@andrewdessler.com) June 24, 2025 at 10:46 AM

Too late?

“We should have awards and whenever someone achieves $100 million, which is already obscene, we give them a bronze statue of a dick, and when you get $1 billion, we could give them an even bigger dick.” …why is nobody quoting this part of the interview? www.ipolitics.ca/2025/07/02/i...

[image or embed]

— Arno Kopecky (@arnokopecky.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 9:45 AM

Solar power is now California's largest source of electricity. ☀️🔌💡

[image or embed]

— Dustin Mulvaney (@dustinmulvaney.bsky.social) July 12, 2025 at 9:21 AM

How the renewable energy industry lost a massive lobbying fight over Trump’s agenda bill, Ella Nilsen and Annie Grayer, CNN, July 17, 2025

Why your energy bills are going up, NYT, October 9, 2025

Extraordinary that the government is going to go into the next election having spent tens of billions of pounds on an ID card system that will be unpopular *and* produce no noticeable improvements to everyday life instead of renationalising the water industry. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

[image or embed]

— Martin Calladine (@uglygame.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 3:47 AM

Did you know a former White House climate advisor flipped a GOP stronghold in Virginia by running entirely on putting a stop to more AI data centers? For @heatmap.news I profiled John McAuliff and a campaign that will be a roadmap for all future anti-AI politicians moving forward.

[image or embed]

— jael holzman (@jael.bsky.social) November 7, 2025 at 10:35 AM

"Musk pledged two years ago to build a state-of-the-art water recycling plant in Memphis to guarantee that his xAI servers wouldn’t deplete the city’s groundwater" "Now that Musk’s first data center is up and running, construction on the recycling facility has come to an abrupt halt"

[image or embed]

— Ketan Joshi (@ketanjoshi.co) May 8, 2026 at 8:38 AM

Sept 2025: Trump doesn't want the energy transition (the Guardian)

In 2024, renewable energy accounted for over 90% of global power capacity expansion. That is because it makes economic sense. IRENA_DAT_RE_Capacity_Highlights_2025-1.pdf

[image or embed]

— Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf (@rahmstorf.bsky.social) November 16, 2025 at 6:22 AM

Today on Volts: Aliya Haq has been in the US climate movement for 20yrs, most recently running Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy initiative. Now she's started a new group, the Clean Economy Project, geared toward supporting clean energy rather than fighting fossil fuels. We dig into the distinction.

[image or embed]

— David Roberts (@volts.wtf) December 12, 2025 at 2:27 PM

Just a few things I'd like to say about this @hausfath.bsky.social piece. The first is that every 10th of a degree of heating over 2C raises risks for multiple irreversible catastrophes MORE than every 10th of a degree of heating under 2C. That's why the 2C target exists. It's not random. 🧵

[image or embed]

— Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) (@doctorvive.bsky.social) January 5, 2026 at 2:56 PM

A deeply underreported story. I know so many people struggling to pay their electric bills

[image or embed]

— Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd.bsky.social) March 3, 2026 at 4:05 PM

the president has no idea what he has set in motion. none. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

[image or embed]

— Rachel Maddow (@maddow.bsky.social) March 8, 2026 at 7:23 PM

I wrote a very similar article in 2019 where I said: "Natural gas seems poised to join coal as another fuel that just couldn’t compete with renewables." And now we are there.

[image or embed]

— Justin Mikulka (@justinmikulka.bsky.social) May 20, 2026 at 6:21 AM

Did not expect to see this at oilprice.com but the economics are very clear at this point. "But where do renewables fit in? They are doing to gas what gas did to coal: they provide the same product (electricity) at a much cheaper price (and obviously in a more environmentally benign fashion)."

[image or embed]

— Justin Mikulka (@justinmikulka.bsky.social) May 20, 2026 at 6:21 AM

U.S. Solar Power Outpaces Coal For First Time As Trump Tries To Turn Back The Clock In May, more of the nation's electricity was supplied by solar power than coal for the first time. Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press, HuffPost, Jun 10, 2026

Trump: The Embodiment of American and Planetary Decline: Give him another two and a half years and who knows what this president will be able to do—but the odds are that, by at least a 6-3 margin, he might indeed be able to take the Earth down with him. Tom Engelhardt, Common Dreams, Jul 11, 2026

Critics Say Trump Is 'Sundowning' After Bonkers Rant About Wind Energy: “You know, they were saying wind was so wonderful. So wonderful. Except you couldn’t watch your television,” Trump said. Anthony Orrico, HuffPost, Jul 23, 2026

Trump Administration Admits It Canceled Grants To Blue States That Didn't Vote For Trump, HuffPost, Sebastian Murdock, July 24, 2026

Energy: Headlines on alternatives to coal

Entering 2022, this prediction: "The world could burn a record amount of coal next year despite efforts to scrap the dirtiest fossil fuel, Reuters, December 17, 2021

China, the world’s biggest polluter, at risk of missing climate targets, new report finds, Reuters, February 22, 2024

But change is possible:

A polluting, coal-fired power plant found the key to solving America’s biggest clean energy challenge, Ella Nilsen and CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir, September 16, 2024

After years and years of media reports that coal is having a comeback in the UK the last coal plant will go offline in just 2 weeks. Coal in the UK is no more. Credit for graph to @ketanjoshi.co

[image or embed]

— Jan Rosenow (@janrosenow.bsky.social) September 16, 2024 at 11:54 AM

Climate change conversations can be tricky. What do you say when someone says there is no point in taking action because China is still building coal plants? ourclimatejourney.ca/common-reaso... #ClimateActionCanada #ClimateChange #ClimateAction

[image or embed]

— ourclimatejourney.bsky.social (@ourclimatejourney.bsky.social) October 29, 2024 at 7:44 PM

"On Sept. 29, 2015, then-Bank of England Governor Mark Carney strode to the podium at Lloyd’s of London and ... urged governments and business leaders to recognize that the “vast majority of [fossil fuel] reserves” are stranded assets that “will be literally unburnable without expensive carbon capture technology, which itself alters fossil fuel economics.”

Ten years later and in the midst of Canada’s second worst wildfire season, Prime Minister Carney essentially confirmed that a new oil pipeline will be among the infrastructure projects fast-tracked under the sweeping powers of Bill C-5, including the same carbon capture fix he questioned 10 years ago." (Desmog, 2 Sept 2025)

On solar power:

"...we’ve finally moved on to the steep part of an S curve, and if we can keep up anything like that pace of expansion it won’t be long before the numbers are truly incredible. ... we are on the cusp of a true explosion that could change the world. We are starting to put out the fires that humans have always relied on, and replace them with the power of the sun."
— Bill McKibben, Here Comes the Sun: Solar power is no longer marginal; now the (all-important) question is when it will be dominant. The Crucial Years, Sep 5, 2024

"Solar panels have, over the last months, suddenly gotten so cheap that they’re now appearing in massive numbers across much of the developing world. Without waiting for what are often moribund utilities to do the job, business and home owners are getting on with electrifying their lives, and doing it cleanly."
— Bill McKibben. Silent Solar: Some really really good news you haven't heard. The Crucial Years. Sep 16, 2024

Solar farms could increase global crop yields by hundreds of billions of pounds, thanks to the protective microclimate created beneath their panels. www.positive.news/environment/...

[image or embed]

— Dr Paul Dorfman (@drpauldorfman.bsky.social) March 7, 2026 at 4:43 AM

December 2017 energy news: Bail out coal, let oil and gas keep releasing methane

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry is proposing a measure to subsidize power plants that operate with a 90-day backup fuel supply on site — that is, coal-fired plants, since renewable energy and natural gas pipelines cannot work that way — even though not even 1 percent of 1 percent of recent power failures were due to a lack of supply. According to a New York Times editorial on Dec. 7, "the primary aim here is to bolster the coal industry, which President Trump embraced unreservedly on the campaign trail and whose moguls embraced him right back," and the initiative would likely cause consumer electricity prices to rise by up to $11 billion "for no discernible public benefit." David Roberts wrote for Vox that this is essentially a bailout of the coal industry, as Trump has made it Perry's job "to figure out a way to stop so many coal-fired power plants from closing." The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) needs to vote on the measure by early January.

"This proposal has been so poorly thought out that it has made odd bedfellows of groups that are often on opposing sides of big policy debates. The oil and gas industry, for instance, has teamed up with renewable energy and environmental groups to fight it. Eight former FERC commissioners from both parties have sent a letter opposing the plan, arguing that it 'would be a significant step backward from the commission’s long and bipartisan evolution to transparent, open, competitive wholesale markets.'"

In a separate move, the administration wants to allow oil and gas companies to continue to release methane at current levels. In December 2017,

"the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which works under Secretary Ryan Zinke at the Interior Department, delayed the implementation of a rule requiring oil and gas companies drilling on federally owned lands to curtail the waste of methane by releasing it in the air. The rationale for delaying the implementation of the rule until January 2019 was that the regulation "may be rescinded or significantly revised in the near future," a hint that Zinke would like to dump it entirely."

The US shale oil industry makes money on oil, not the associated gas (methane) that comes out of the oil wells. Which is why they dump so much of it into the atmosphere. As shale plays age they get gassier. More gas for the same amount of oil. They will release even more methane directly.

[image or embed]

— Oilfield Witness (@oilfieldwitness.bsky.social) November 20, 2024 at 7:56 AM

This is from the new IEA methane report. The dark blue is methane emissions from oil and gas production. It is easy to see tha the US is by far the world leader in total emissions.

[image or embed]

— Oilfield Witness (@oilfieldwitness.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 8:41 AM

www.iea.org/news/methane...

[image or embed]

— Oilfield Witness (@oilfieldwitness.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 8:41 AM