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Power generators in the U.S. plan to retire 8.1 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity this year, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s more than double the 4 GW retired last year but less than the 9.8 GW that have been taken offline each year over the last decade. Planned retirements across all sources for 2025 total about 12.3 GW, and coal power retirements account for the largest share at 66%, followed by natural gas at 21%. At the same time, the EIA expects 63 GW of new utility-scale power capacity to come online this year, 81% of which will be solar and battery storage.
EIA
EIA
The U.S. and Ukraine have reportedly reached a deal that would see Ukraine share some of the revenue from its state-owned natural resources – including oil, gas, and critical minerals – with the United States. Ukraine has large deposits of critical minerals and rare earth materials, some of which are essential in clean technologies including electric vehicles. President Trump previously said he wanted access to some of those materials. The terms of the new deal remain unclear, but a draft seen by some outlets suggests Ukraine would put 50% of future mineral proceeds into a newly established joint fund, up to $500 billion. Some of the money would be reinvested into the war-battered country, and “the United States would provide a long-term financial commitment to the development of a ‘stable and economically prosperous Ukraine,’” according toRetuers. However, there do not seem to be any clear security guarantees for Ukraine in the deal. The Financial Times also noted that it “leaves crucial questions such as the size of the U.S. stake in the fund and the terms of ‘joint ownership’ deals to be thrashed out in follow-up agreements.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly plans to meet with Trump in Washington on Friday.
The nonprofit Environmental Working Group has published its newly updated tap water database, showing that millions of Americans are drinking water that contains “forever chemicals” (or PFAS) and other contaminants. EWG synthesized reports from 50,000 individual water systems across the country. In total, 563 utilities reported unsafe levels of forever chemicals. Almost all community water systems contained detectable levels of contaminants of some kind – from PFAS to heavy metals to radioactive substances. As Heatmap’s Jeva Lange reports, the Environmental Protection Agency is required to report drinking water data, but it’s never released a comprehensive database, and information can be hard to come by. “EWG is filling this need for people to have a national clearinghouse where they can easily access their drinking water data,” Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist with EWG, told Lange.
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The UK needs to bring its emissions down by 87% compared to 1990 levels by 2040 if it is to remain on track for net zero by 2050, according to a new report from the Climate Change Committee, which is an independent climate adviser to the government. Sixty percent of those 2040 reductions will come from electrification – decarbonizing the grid, switching to EVs, and swapping out fossil fuel home systems with heat pumps, etc. The report noted that the UK has already cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half since 1990 by “expanding renewable power and phasing out coal in the electricity sector.” Going forward, surface transport alone will account for nearly 30% of emissions cuts, with three-quarters of cars and vans on the road in the UK expected to be electric by 2040.
A recent study found that in spring and summer, trees and other vegetation in Central Los Angeles can absorb up to 60% of the carbon dioxide that gets emitted during the daytime.
Investment in clean energy and transportation reached $272 billion in the U.S. last year, which is a 16% rise on the previous year, according to Rhodium Group’s Q4 analysis. The “primary drivers of investment” were consumers who were buying clean technologies like EVs, heat pumps, and renewable electricity and storage solutions. Here is a look at those “retail” trends over the last four years:
Rhodium Group
Clean investment accounted for about 5% of U.S. private investment in the last quarter of 2024, up slightly from the same quarter in 2023. Total investment in Q4 was $70 billion, down 1% from Q3. Rhodium’s report said that while the overall investment trend signals growth, “it also reflects a deceleration from the previous streak of quarter-on-quarter increases.” In other words, growth seems to be slowing.
President Trump wants the Keystone XL oil pipeline project to be built, he said in a social media post yesterday. The 1,200-mile pipeline was supposed to carry about 800,000 barrels of Canadian oil sands crude per day to Nebraska, but has been rejected several times – most recently by President Biden in 2021 – over concerns about its environmental impacts. The company that had been trying to develop the pipeline, South Bow Corp., has since abandoned the project, and a spokesperson toldBloomberg the firm has “moved on.” In his post, Trump said, “If not them, perhaps another Pipeline Company.”
And speaking of pipelines, Greenpeace goes to court this week over the Dakota Access Pipeline, or rather the group’s opposition to it. Texas-based Energy Transfer is accusing Greenpeace of coordinating disruptive protests over the pipeline’s construction in 2016 and 2017. The pipeline has since been completed and is transporting oil, but still Energy Transfer is seeking $300 million in damages, an amount that could bankrupt the activist group. Greenpeace says it played a supportive role in the demonstrations, which were largely organized by Native American groups. It calls the trial “a critical test of the future of the First Amendment, both freedom of speech and peaceful protest under the Trump administration and beyond.”
China is aiming to clean up its chronic air pollution problem this year, according to the country’s director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment, Li Tianwei. In the ongoing “battle for blue skies,” the country will roll out new emissions standards, increase the use of electric vehicles and low-carbon machinery at transportation hubs, and move more goods via rail and water, Reutersreported. The country will also focus on improving air quality forecasting and giving advanced warning when pollution is expected to rise. About 2 million people die in China every year from exposure to air pollution, according to the World Health Organization. Pollution levels have been falling in recent years, but still remain above WHO standards.
Tesla sales in the European Union were down 45% last month compared to the same period in 2024. Meanwhile, overall EV sales in the EU were up 37%.
