Danger Season continues, with The New York Times describing a blanket of smoke from Canadian wildfires that ‟stretched across Ontario into the Midwestern and northeastern United States… disrupting life for millions and prompting many to stay inside with the windows shut. Air quality readings surged to dangerous levels in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Toronto and many places in between.” The air in Washington, Philadelphia and New York rated a bit better, but was still unhealthy and smelled like a campfire (an Air Quality Index level below 50 is healthy, at 300 or higher is hazardous: the readings in northern Michigan and Toledo, OH, measured over 750). About 800 wildfires are presently burning across Canada, most in the country’s northern wilderness.

The Guardian examines the results of new polling indicating that a majority of Americans (61%) understand that extreme weather events have become more frequent. This group includes ‟72% of Democrats, 63% of Independents, and nearly half – 46% – of all Republicans.” This suggests that important messaging about climate change is breaking through. I think the broad uneasiness about the potential impacts of the growing El Niño is also adding to climate-change awareness.

The Trump Administration, however, couldn’t care less, and is continuing to pay companies to abandon offshore-wind projects that were already leased and under development. The latest payment, $129 million to Duke Energy as reported by The New York Times, brings the total expended by the Administration to $2.5 billion. One analyst noted that, with demand for electricity increasing, canceling clean-energy projects ‟is self-defeating. Paying off companies so they will abandon them is just ludicrous.” The Guardian interviews union workers who struggle to understand why the President would eliminate their jobs to satisfy his ideological vendetta. The Minnesota Reformer reports on the impact of Trump’s energy policies in that state: ‟a de facto freeze on wind energy puts 1,200 construction jobs, 4,400 ‘indirect and induced’ jobs and more than $168 million in economic impact at risk for Minnesota.” Meanwhile, Canary Media reports that offshore-wind power helped stabilize the grid on the East Coast during the latest heat wave. Electricity from wind turbines also meant utilities could burn less oil during peak demand, saving consumers money and reducing air pollution.

The Guardian describes the solar revolution in Australia, where more residential-scale batteries are being installed than anywhere outside of China. With solar already on one-in-three Australian homes, which apparently is a ‟happy accident of uncoordinated policies, simple and quick permitting and widespread public support,” the cost of electricity is beginning to fall. As in California, more and more of the evening peak in electrical demand in Australia is being met by solar energy stored earlier in the day in batteries. Coal-fired power plants are gradually closing, and 24% less natural gas was burned for electricity this summer compared with the previous year. In California, more ‟solar energy” is being used in the evenings than at lunch time, as batteries become more important.

Most grid-scale batteries are designed to discharge for about four hours, as this covers the evening peak in consumption and maximizes revenue. To reach its clean energy goals, however, California needs grid batteries that can discharge over a longer period of time. Canary Media reports on one of the first 8-hour grid batteries on-line in California’s Kern county, which was developed to meet state guidelines adopted several years ago. Canary Media also notes that the manufacturing of solar cells and panels is growing rapidly in the U.S., still a product of the Biden Administration’s policies to reinvigorate solar manufacturing in America.

On the one-year anniversary of the ‟One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which eliminated most of the incentives for alternate energy from the Inflation Reduction Act, Canary Media reports that ‟more than 90% of the power plants brought online in America in 2025 were solar, wind, or battery farms, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And the agency projects that these clean resources will account for 93% of new additions to the power grid this year. There’s a simple reason for clean energy’s unstoppable rise: America needs more energy fast, and only renewables and batteries can deliver it.” However, the loss of the tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act will result in less clean energy in the United States, with one analysis projecting half as much construction than if the incentives had remained in place.

There seems to be no doubt that the war between the U.S. and Iran will accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. Grist notes that, due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, 25 countries are experiencing critical shortages of road fuel, jet fuel or heating oil, and policies intended to cut down on the consumption of oil and natural gas are being rolled out. ‟But unlike the oil shock of the 1970s, which occurred in a time when substitutes for fossil fuels were not yet powerful or cheap enough to build at scale, this disruption is happening as renewable energy sources are beginning to outcompete fossil fuels.” Some countries are using coal or other dirty fuels to address shortages, but ‟others have announced significant investments in clean energy to chart a path away from the sources of energy they have relied on for more than a hundred years.” A Vietnamese company that was going to construct a 4.8 GW gas plant powered by LNG (it would have been the country’s largest) has canceled that plan and now will build wind, solar and battery storage instead. South Korea recently announced deployment of 100 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, and countries are considering new nuclear power plants as well.

The Guardian notes that a recent analysis concludes China has been the clear winner of the U.S.-Iran war. ‟The country’s large stockpiles of oil and the hugely ambitious rollout of renewable energy mean it has been less exposed to the energy shock than other countries.” After weathering the shock well, China ‟stood to gain from the economic and geopolitical trends sparked by the wider conflict.” This is indicated by soaring exports of its EVs and solar panels.

The New York Times takes an in-depth look at American EV manufacturing, which has seen a major decline as multiple companies have canceled electric models and scaled back others. This has been at enormous cost to the companies themselves, with Stellantis reporting $26 billion in EV-related losses and Ford $19 billion. The long-term implications of this are really grim, as one in four cars sold globally in 2025 was an EV, and this is expected to double in 10 years. One auto journalist says the U.S. ‟pulled a U-turn while the rest of the world was pushing forward.” Many people hoped the EV revolution was ‟an opportunity for Detroit to rediscover its capacity for ingenuity and to re-establish credibility in an industry it helped to create.” Instead, the industry could be re-creating the crisis that occurred when fuel-efficient Asian sedans made great inroads into the American market (in 1965, 92% of cars sold in the U.S. were manufactured here, but that dropped to 46% in 2015). The Guardian notes that, last year, over 20% of new cars sold in the UK were manufactured in China.

The Washington Post examines a new market for EVs — mobile homes and trailers. While still in its infancy, offerings include some revolutionary features, including trailers with electric motors that can reduce gasoline burned for towing. Inside Climate News describes the EV industry’s “hangover” from the loss of the federal tax credit. EV sales are down 23.8% percent from the first half of last year, with only 6% of new cars being EVs. California just responded: Reuters reports that the state is now offering a $3,500 tax credit for first-time EV buyers. ‟It applies to new vehicles with a suggested retail price of up to $50,000. It also includes a ​separate $1,750 rebate for used EVs costing up to $25,000.” About 20% of new cars sold in California last year were EVs (half of these were Teslas), compared to about 7.8% nationally.

The New York Times describes how geographically concentrated EV purchases are in the U.S. ‟This year, a group of researchers combed through new E.V. registrations in the United States and discovered that from 2012 to 2023, close to half of them had been logged in the 10 most Democratic counties in the country, while a third were made by buyers in ultraliberal enclaves like California’s Bay Area and Cambridge, Mass.”

< back to news+views