Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signs historic legislation to fully remove the state's ban on nuclear energy! It takes a lot to get a popular elected official to backtrack on a previous veto like this. Awesome to see his mind change on the topic! 🔌💡 abc7chicago.com/post/illinoi...

This is very cool. The editor-in-chief of Sermitsiaq, one of Greenland's two big national publications, just announced to launch of a workspace open to international journalists coming to Nuuk to report on the geopolitical crisis the Arctic island is facing.

Really good @alisontakemura.bsky.social piece on the numbers that define the future of building electrification: www.canarymedia.com/articles/car...

Today in Heatmap AM: 🇬🇱 Trump ups pressure campaign to annex Greenland ⤵️ PJM to lower East Coast AI power forecast 🔎 Trump’s fusion company starts site selection for first plant Catch up on these stories and more with @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/greenland...

LA has such a distinct smell. I notice this every time I exit at LAX. I think it’s the ambient smell of evaporating chlorine from all the swimming pools mixed with the tropical plants.

the nuclear company Deep Fission is trying to bury small reactors a mile underground, ostensibly for cost and safety reasons. does that make any sense at all? @alexckaufman.bsky.social explores.

NEW in Heatmap AM: 🛢️ Oil prices closed 2025 at $63 a barrel ♻️ Energy Department gives $12M to recycle drilling tools 🇯🇵 First floating offshore wind goes online in Japan Read the latest stories from @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/crude-pri...

This is an excellent point. Has anyone seen any good, balanced explainer of what the strategic value could be of annexing Greenland, which depends heavily on subsidies from its suzerain, when the U.S. military is already firmly entrenched there.

Fatherhood changes you. I woke up an hour before my alarm and accidentally left for the airport so early I’m actually beating all the rush hour traffic and will probably end up sitting by the gate for like 90 minutes before boarding. And this is when I’m traveling alone.

I have a short exclusive in the Substack this morning: Holtec has submitted its license application to the NRC to build its first two 300-megawatt reactors in Michigan, Pioneer 1 and 2. It's a major milestone toward building America's first SMRs. kaufman.substack.com/p/holtec-mar...

Landon Derentz, the White House National Security Council's energy chief during Trump 1.0, says it's "misguided to claim that" Venezuela's oil was the goal of toppling Maduro. Rather, he says it's "the enabler" of hemispheric domination, "not the prize." www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/v...

Germany's Senate prez: “It was a left-wing extremist group that once again attacked our infrastructure and thereby threatened people’s lives—the lives of elderly people who may need ventilators, the lives of families with small children... this is no joke; this is a terrorist attack.”

Looking forward to the century’s Q2 results

I love this piece so much.

The largest power station on Long Island — National Grid’s gas- and oil-fired Northport Power Plant — is also one of the oldest. Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited in September to tout the administration’s plan to keep aging fossil facilities open and build a new gas pipeline into the suburb.

“The levelized cost of building a solar project in New York far exceeds the expected revenue from selling solar power, says a NYPA plan, with project success potentially depending on the sale of renewable energy credits at a satisfactory price.”

One wonders how this role he’s playing serves the voters of Louisiana who elected him as their governor.

NEW in Heatmap AM: 🚫 Trump orders pause on all offshore wind construction 🔋 Feds green light 217-mile transmission line 💸 Google buys energy infrastructure developer intersect for $5B Catch up on the latest with @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/trump-off...

EXCLUSIVE: I received a copy of the letter sent to developers today halting construction on all 5 offshore wind farms being built in America. What’s new here is the close “coordination” with the “Department of War” in determining the “risk” poised by these wind farms. And the threat to “cancel.”

Breaking news: Trump is citing “national security” to halt all active work on offshore wind projects Five giant energy projects, countless jobs at risk My story explains how the argument has legal weaknesses and comes from an anti-wind policy doc I reported in January

In today’s Heatmap AM: 🤝 New York and Ontario sign advanced nuclear partnership ♻️ Redwood Materials brings battery recycling online 🪨 13 states start geothermal power alliance Start your week with @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/new-york-...

Interesting considering Italy just took in Europe’s trial balloon delivery of green steel from China.

There’s probably something to be said for the fact that two fusion companies are worth more than companies doing battery recycling or next-gen geothermal, but what that is depends on what kind of timeline you believe in for fusion.

It’s so funny that Saudi Arabia’s oil company stylizes its name in all lowercase like, are you trying to sell hydrocarbons or go on a rant about how Zohran is a sellout for wanting to build more housing??

I don’t usually comment on stuff like this but I just watched his TPUSA speech from yesterday and it is kind of shocking to see Vivek Ramaswamy give a far more full-throated condemnation of calling the Second Lady racial slurs than her own husband, the vice president of the United States has given.

One more little scoop to close out the week:

In Heatmap AM’s Friday edition: 🧑‍💻 Trump’s social media company merges with fusion energy business ✅ House passes NEPA reform with anti-wind energy provisions 🕵️‍♀️ Energy Department watchdog opens investigation Wrap up your week with @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/trump-med...

My latest for @sherwood.news on the weirdest tie-up of the year: Truth Social and the holy grail of clean energy.

I’m not supposed to talk publicly about it but @technologyreview.com’s secret crystal ball technology has really upped our game.

My latest for @sherwood.news:

My nephew who was born when I was in college listening to Crystal Castles is now sending me remixes of their songs. L’dor, v’dor.

NEW in Heatmap AM: 🔎 3 Senate Dems open inquiry into data centers’ impact on power bills 💨 The SPEED Act, a permitting reform bill, passes in the House 🔌 The transformer shortage is getting worse Dig into the latest from @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/data-cent...

Korea Zinc is building a $7.4 billion into critical mineral refinery in Tennessee with federal funding. The Pentagon is going to own 40% of the facility. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

THEY ARE NOT CALLED WIND MILLS. THEY ARE CALLED WIND TURBINES

The latest edition of Heatmap AM: 🛻 Ford takes a $20 billion write-down on EV assets ↩️ EU reverses planned 2035 ban of gas automobiles 💡 Virginia Dems to reintroduce energy bills vetoed by Youngkin Get up to speed on today’s news with @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/ford-ev-w...

My debut story for @spectrum.ieee.org:

Today in Heatmap AM: ⚡ China spends more on fusion research than US 🪫 Korean battery maker SK On ends partnership with Ford 🇨🇦 Canadian prime minister’s climate backtrack faces resistance Start your week right with the latest from @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/china-fus...

China's rise in fusion energy research has been meteoric, as this chart in NYT illustrates:

new from me: are data centers going to wipe out water supplies? how much water does ChatGPT really use? and what's going on with that big correction in Empire of AI? i went long on the conversation around AI and water, and how it's actually about what we want resources to be used for:

Scoop: Activists fighting to shut down operating wind energy facilities have now filed a lawsuit to force the government to heavily scrutinize eagle deaths from three projects in Wyoming. How? Through public records requests. Targeting wind farms via FOIA reviews. #greensky #energysky

Start your day with Heatmap AM: 🌊 100,000 people told to evacuate in Washington State due to floods 🚙 Rivian invests in self-driving technology 👍 House passes 3 permitting reform bills Dig into the latest news from @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/washingto...

NuScale once seemed set to win the small modular reactor race. Yet earlier this month, it missed out on potentially $800 million in federal grant money to accelerate SMR deployment. What the heck happened? Here's @alexckaufman.bsky.social with answers: heatmap.news/energy/nusca...

I wrote about the potential legal and insurance issues facing deep sea mining for @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

New feature in @heatmap.news: When the Energy Department gave out $800 million to GE-Hitachi and Holtec's reactors last week, I couldn't help but wonder: What happened to NuScale? The company was once the leading SMR project. But forerunners ≠ frontrunners. heatmap.news/energy/nusca...

This is an interesting piece about YouTube creators finding themselves on the precipice of having to take journalistic ethics a little more seriously: www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/jour... I have seen this happening with some of my favorite channels already. Definitely a positive trend.

Here’s what’s in today’s Heatmap AM: 🛢️ Exxon Mobil to reduce low-carbon investments by a third 💵 Fed cuts interest rates again 🇪🇺 EU exempts most companies from environmental reporting rules Don’t miss the latest from @alexckaufman.bsky.social: heatmap.news/am/exxon-low...

Great reporting by @mirandagreen.bsky.social and @emorwee.bsky.social probing at why so many celebrity chefs keep defending non-stick pans made with toxic PFAS, given everything we've learned about these "forever chemicals." atmos.earth/political-la...

Such a masterfully succinct and delightful little story comparing the number of press releases flying taxi startups put out versus the total hours the companies' vehicles have actually spent flying. sherwood.news/business/air...

learning just now that Kid Rock was a rich kid