Cue the self-inflicted disasters. Cue the screaming. Keep your cool, and be ready to take advantage when the chaos and confusion comes down on those sowing the chaos and confusion. Did you hear about the maladministration firing nuclear safety engineers, and the discovering that we NEED nuclear safety engineers, but they had turned off the e-mail accounts of the nuclear safety engineers, and couldn’t think how to tell them to come back to work? No, sorry, they can’t think at all.
This is the level of management strategery that gave us the Chernobyl meltdown.
I knew I didn’t want the Feds or the Russians or anybody messing around with nukes, and this is one more good reason not to.
And now the maladministration is out to shoot all of its voters in the pocketbook.
And now Russia has fired a drone at the Chernobyl containment vessel, the [censored] idiots. It only broke through the outer layer, so no extra radiation was released.
It’s actually all right. No such rollback is possible in the face of real market forces. The most that this maladministration knows how to do is cut off future licenses and funding for such things as offshore wind, which will boom under the next President. EVs other than Tesla will be fine. Solar will be fine. Coal continues to die the Death of a Billion Cuts. Gas is approaching its peak and inevitable decline.
But there is going to be a lot of noise made.
Denial and Obstruction
Bloomberg Green:
Trump Ends Climate Work Inside Agency That Responds to Disasters
A memo sent to leadership at the US Department of Homeland Security orders the elimination of climate-related activities.
The memo instructs senior office heads to “eliminate all climate change activities and the use of climate change terminology in DHS policies and programs, to the maximum extent permitted by the law,” according to the document seen by Bloomberg News. The changes are meant to bring “alignment” with Trump’s executive orders that reverse multiple climate-related orders by former President Joe Biden, it said.
California’s car pollution regulations face scrutiny.
The EPA’s new head said he would formally subject the agency’s approval of those rules to Congress, opening the door for lawmakers’ expedited repeal of the authorizations. The move responds to a clamor from the auto industry and fuel producers that have called California’s standards unachievable.
Shipping giants are pushing back on ‘unsustainable’ biofuels.
Hapag-Lloyd AG and the maritime arm of Louis Dreyfus Co. are among the shipping lines calling on the International Maritime Organization to avoid backing crop-based biofuels as the industry pushes to decarbonize. When deforestation and land use are taken into account, palm and soy have been deemed worse for the climate than traditional fuels.
Carmakers pulled back their Super Bowl advertising. Most companies promoting electric vehicles sat out the Big Game last Sunday. Things have changed since 2022 when seven of the nine auto ads in the Super Bowl were pitching big batteries and electric motors.
Sustainable flights have been delayed. Global air travel surged to record levels last year, and airlines are consuming far less sustainable jet fuel than expected. This is a dire combination in the effort to counteract climate change, with aviation contributing about 4% of human-induced warming to date.
New Zealand is a little less green. The one-time leader on emissions reductions has been rolling back curbs on fossil fuels and loosening emissions regulations. The nation may already be giving the world a glimpse of what global climate policy will look like in the Trump era.
The word ‘climate’ is disappearing from finance talk. Fund managers are erasing references to climate change from their pitches. Meanwhile, one of the biggest US power providers removed the mention of climate targets from its earnings release.
JPMorgan clients, on the other hand, want more climate information. This week the biggest US bank launched a new climate communique. Its author, Sarah Kapnick, was previously a strategist in the asset and wealth management division. She returned in October after serving for more than two years as chief scientist of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
BlueSky Climate Feeds and Tags
Renewables Generally
Solar Energy
Wind Energy
Geothermal Energy
Energy Storage
Electric Vehicles
Green Steel and Cement
Renewable Energy Jobs
Agrivoltaics
Industrial Recycling
Nuclear Power
#NoNewNukes
Countries and Regions
Also
Yesterday wind power accounted for ~9% of New Zealand power generation (8.9GWh). Solar power was ~1% (0.7GWh). Hydro power was ~48% (46.8GWh). Geothermal power was ~22% (21.5GWh).
Yesterday wind power accounted for ~23% of Denmark power generation (28.3GWh). Solar power was ~10% (12.2GWh).