Jeff St. John
@jeffsaintjohn
Chief reporter and policy specialist @Canary Media, a nonprofit newsroom covering the clean energy transition. Proud parent of Lily the corgi. Views are my own.
A new report from @CEA_Global highlights how newly imposed U.S. tariffs are reshaping the cost landscape for imported battery systems and components from China. Download for free here: ow.ly/9csE50Wq491
Last year, the FTC banned two Big Oil executives from serving on the boards of oil giants Exxon and Chevron after it found they colluded to fix gas prices. Trump’s FTC just overturned that ban. His regime is rubber-stamping corporate corruption.
The DOE just terminated a $4.9 billion loan guarantee that is likely to kill the largest planned transmission project in America. Cancelling this loan guarantee is one more sign that the Trump administration isn't serious about "energy dominance."
This 1000x. Another plea to fellow journalists: When you include the obligatory "energy dominance" quote from the Trump administration, you also need to point out they are actively blocking abundant low-cost energy resources for ideological reasons.
Trump is doing the opposite of what the “Abundance” book recommends by canceling transmission lines and weaponizing the federal permitting process to block solar and wind development. That’s just a fact. Now can we have a real argument about what everyone really believes, please?
The Trump administration has clawed back a $4.9B loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, one of the biggest of a set of high-voltage direct-current transmission projects that experts say are vital to bring clean, cheap and more reliable energy online: canarymedia.com/articles/trans…
Slow and cumbersome permitting and interconnection rules have driven up U.S. rooftop solar costs for decades. Now, with federal tax credits going away, fixing them has become a life-or-death issue — and solar advocates are pushing states to make reforms: canarymedia.com/articles/solar…
Um… does Anthropic make any money to buy electricity?
It is hard to get your head around how stupendously large an electricity user a 2-5 gigawatt data center represents. A 5 gigawatt data center consumes on the order of 40 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year, as much electricity as the ENTIRE STATE of Nevada or Kansas!
Nuclear scientists have been exploring small modular reactors for decades. Will they actually get built this time around? canarymedia.com/articles/utili…
Looking forward to being on WOSU’s All Sides with Amy Juravich today. We’ll talk about how the federal megabill’s energy provisions will hurt Ohio businesses & jobs. @CanaryMediaInc @AmyJuravich @EJTodayNews wosu.org/show/all-sides… .
We previously found the Trump admin. knew the majority of the 230+ Venezuelan deportees had not been convicted of violent crimes. Our new analysis reveals another jarring reality: that most of the men were already moving through the US immigration system. propublica.org/article/venezu…
Nothing says you want to remove bureaucracy to unleash American energy dominance quite like adding bureaucracy to hobble American energy dominance.
On the Trump admin requiring Secretary-level approval of renewable project permits, via @JasonGrumet on @politico energy pod:
One of the hottest days of the year so far in Texas: 53% of the power on peak is coming from solar & wind. Wholesale power is ~$20 per megawatt-hour or 2 cents per kilowatt-hour. No conservation calls, no energy emergencies. ~20 gigawatts of extra power just sitting around.
The cost of a new natural gas combined cycle power plant has increased by ~120% in 3 years, according to a comparison of AES Indiana assumptions from its 2022 vs 2025 IRPs. The new gas units are being considered to power new Google AI data centers being planned in the Indy area.
Breaking: General Motors' profit shrank 35% last quarter after taking a $1.1 billion tariff hit on.wsj.com/4eXz66U
SCOOP in ME: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is meeting with the full House Republican conference this morning to discuss their megalaw. Burgum will advise members on how to message key energy provisions with constituents when they head home for the August recess
Great reporting from @KMKowalski on the oil and gas industry's role in crafting carbon capture legislation in Ohio to put the long-term risks of things going wrong on the state, not the industry: canarymedia.com/articles/carbo…
There's a PUC workshop on large load integration today. This is a massive grid issue in Texas rn as ERCOT forecasts a 75% increase in demand in the next 5 years. The Texas Reliability Entity cites "disorganized integration" as a major risk. More here. 1/ douglewin.com/p/tre-solar-an…
Trump's megabill will hit an already struggling rooftop solar industry hard, undoing decades-old tax credits and undermining remaining incentives. The result? Fewer projects, major layoffs — and a forced shift to business models that can weather the storm: canarymedia.com/articles/solar…
The independent market monitor for the largest regional power grid in America finds that AI data centers are causing big power price increases: "Customers are already bearing billions of dollars in higher costs as a direct result of existing and forecast data center load."