Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Trump Was Already Cutting Low-income Energy Assistance – the Shutdown is Making Things Worse as Cold Weather Arrives
By Conor Harrison, Ph.D., Elena Louder, Nikki Luke, Ph.D., Shelley Welton
November 10, 2025

Introduction:

(Conversation) As fall turns to winter and temperatures begin to drop, millions of people across the U.S. will struggle to pay their rising energy bills. The government shutdown is making matters even worse: Several states have pushed back the start of their winter energy assistance because their federally allocated funds had yet to show up.

Even with the prospect of Congress ending the shutdown, widespread federal layoffs mean it would likely take time to restore funding.

A 2023 national survey found that nearly 1 in 4 Americans were unable to pay their full energy bill for at least one month, and nearly 1 in 4 reported that they kept their homes at unsafe temperatures to save money. By 2025, updated polling indicated nearly 3 in 4 Americans are worried about rising energy costs.

Conservative estimates suggest that utilities shut off power to over 3 million U.S. households each year because the residents cannot pay their bills.

Conclusion:

For now, the cuts mean more pressure on nonprofits, faith-based organizations and informal networks. Looking ahead to another winter of freezing temperatures, we can only hope that delays to LIHEAP payments and cuts to LIHEAP staff don’t foreshadow a growing yet preventable death toll.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/trump-was- ... s-269342

[wjfox]

[firestar464]

Sustainable, solar-powered 15-minute city: Scientists envision neighborhood clusters sharing energy and resources

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-11-sus ... -city.html

[weatheriscool]

[Yuli Ban]

Imagine watching an empire literally sign and vote away its own dominance day after day

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]

Imagine watching an empire literally sign and vote away its own dominance day after day

OH MY FUCKING GOD



ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Imagine watching an empire literally sign and vote away its own dominance day after day

OH MY FUCKING GOD



ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS

Republicans are literally destroying America as a world power. There's a reason why the rest of this century will be led by china and countries smart enough to ditch fossil fuels...Not only that but China gives a shit investing in new tech while the republicans want to cut, slash and burn. A sure loser.

[caltrek]

Trump’s Plans to Expand Offshore Drilling Meet Bipartisan Opposition
By Keerti Gopal
November 21, 2025

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) It’s not often that the governors of California and Florida are on the same page, but this week they’re aligned in opposition to the White House’s latest plan to expand offshore oil drilling near both their shores.

The Trump administration’s plans, announced Thursday by the Department of the Interior, propose offering as many as 34 offshore drilling leases across nearly 1.3 billion acres off the coasts of Alaska, California and Florida. That would open up waters that haven’t had new leases in decades—or in some cases ever, environmental groups said—and reverse previous policy by the Biden administration that aimed to slow down offshore oil development.

“The Biden administration slammed the brakes on offshore oil and gas leasing and crippled the long-term pipeline of America’s offshore production,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a statement with the plan’s announcement. “By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong.”

Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska praised the move. But California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, both quickly spoke up against it.

“Donald Trump’s idiotic proposal to sell off California’s coasts to his Big Oil donors is dead in the water,” Newsom wrote Thursday on X, echoing his own earlier words. “We will not stand by as our coastal economy and communities are put in danger.”

Read more here: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/211 ... position/

caltrek’s comment: The absurdity of such schemes is becoming more apparent by the day. Unfortunately, the oil industry has a well-developed and well-funded propaganda strategy that involves propping up politicians like Trump. It will not go easily into that goodnight.

[Yuli Ban]

Electricity is about to become the new base currency and China figured it out

For most of human history, currency was a direct claim on tangible, productive output. Before the abstraction of government fiat or cryptocurrency, value was stored in things that required real work and resources, bushels of grain, livestock, gold, assets with their own direct productive output: horses, and tragically, slaves.

These were the foundational assets of economies, representing a direct link between labor, resources, and stored value.

As we accelerate into an all-electric, all-digital age, this fundamental link is re-emerging, but with a new unit of account. The 21st-century economy, defined by automated industry, robotic, electric transport, and now power-hungry artificial intelligence, runs on a single, non-negotiable input: electricity. In this new paradigm, the real base currency, the ultimate representation of productive capacity, is the kilowatt-hour (kWh).

The kWh is the new economic base layer. Petro-dollar is dead. Long live the electro-dollar.

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]

[caltrek]

The Pentagon is Hoarding Critical Minerals that Could Power the Clean Energy Transition
By Sophie Hurwitz
December 22, 2025

Introduction:

(Grist) Pete Hegseth, who has taken to calling himself the Secretary of War, says the Defense Department “does not do climate change crap.” Just last week, he asserted that the agency “will not be distracted” by climate change or “woke moralizing.”

But a new report suggests that the Pentagon is engaging with the issue in one serious way: As it stockpiles dozens of critical minerals, it is threatening the energy transition by hoarding resources that could be used to decarbonize transportation, energy production, and other sectors.

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocated $7.5 billion to bolster the Pentagon’s reserves of critical minerals like cobalt, lithium, and graphite that are held in six depots nationwide, an effort supervised by the Defense Logistics Agency. Such materials are used in everything from jet engines to weapons systems, and often are mined or processed in China or other nations. The materials in the stockpile are only accessible during times of declared war, or by order of the Undersecretary of War, a Defense Logistics Agency spokesperson said.

The report on potential peaceful uses for those materials was released by the Transition Security Project, which analyzes the economic, climate, and geopolitical threats posed by the U.S. and British military. Lorah Steichen, a strategist who prepared the document, said America is essentially facing a choice between missiles and buses. The Pentagon’s planned cobalt and graphite stockpiles (7,500 metric tons and 50,000 metric tons, respectively) could electrify 102,896 buses — dwarfing the 6,000 or so currently operating in the U.S. Or they could be used to produce 80.2 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity, which is more than twice the energy storage the country has now.

The International Energy Agency also has said such minerals could be used for peaceful ends, like building the batteries and wind turbines and other technologies underpinning the green transition. But designating a mineral as “critical” allows the government to fast-track mining and procurement for military ends. “The term ‘critical minerals’ originates out of military stockpiling — the criticality of a mineral is linked, in part, to its significance to national security,” Steichen said.

Read more here: https://grist.org/accountability/the-p ... ansition/

[wjfox]

[wjfox]