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Tech Brew

Climate Change

Tricia Crimmins

techbrew.com

Energy-efficient appliances can do more than just bring down energy bills: In concert, they can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% of the needed decrease for the world to hit net zero by 2050, according to a new study from efficient appliance nonprofit Clasp.

But that’s only if governments put in place minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for appliances, which the study recommends should be in accordance with “today’s best available technologies.”

Home appliances—think air conditioners, water heaters, and refrigerators—have the potential to make a huge difference in net-zero progress because they account for more than a third of global energy consumption, and that share is only growing. To mitigate increasing energy usage from appliances, regularly updated MEPS help to “phase out less efficient products over time and prevent the dumping of inefficient technologies onto the local market,” the report said.

“Even best-in-class MEPS remain well below the efficiency levels of the best available technologies,” the report noted. “Countries that are already leading in MEPS should make them even more stringent and set a schedule for matching the efficiency of the best-performing appliances currently available on the global market.”

Energy efficiency standards in the US are unlikely to become more stringent, at least in the near term. The Trump administration is working to end or privatize 

, a federal program that sets energy-efficiency standards for home appliances. Additionally, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act phased out the energy-efficient home improvement tax credit, which covered appliances like heat pumps. Both moves were denounced by congressional Democrats at a recent House Energy and Commerce 

“The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill stripped away these tax credits…that were meant to help consumers pay any increased upfront costs on an energy-efficient home,” Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA) said during the hearing. “Now we have an administration that is set on weakening the Energy Star program. Who doesn't love the Energy Star program?”

Republicans, however, expressed a desire to soften energy-efficiency standards, claiming that they drive up costs and prevent manufacturers from making “products that people want to buy at the price they want to pay for it,” committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) said during the hearing. Part of that strategy includes the newly introduced “Don’t Mess With My Home Appliances Act,” which would “prohibit the Secretary of Energy from prescribing any new or amended energy conservation standard for a product that is not technologically feasible and economically justified.”

“No household appliance was off limits in [the Biden administration’s] pursuit of a radical rush to green agenda,” Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA), who introduced the bill, said during the hearing. “It’s a real problem for our consumers.”

But it’s threats to energy-efficiency standards that seem to be a problem for consumers: Consumer Reports earlier this year found that 87% of the nearly 3,000 people surveyed agreed that “home appliances for sale in the US should be required to meet minimum levels of energy efficiency.”

New HVAC system being installed at a house in Broadlands, VA 

New study finds energy-efficient appliances can cut emissions 20%

The study recommends stringent energy-efficiency standards—which many in Congress are against.

No one’s letting Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski forget that she voted for President Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. Seconds after she took the stage at National Clean Energy Week on Wednesday, a protester yelled at her and said she’s a “climate criminal.”

“You were the tie-breaking vote for the Big Beautiful Bill,” the protester yelled. “You have doomed us all.”

Murkowski didn’t entirely rebuke their chants. In her remarks, she acknowledged that the bill created many obstacles for wind and solar energy, which help to generate 

 in her state, while shifting some of the blame for tamping down clean energy production to the Trump administration.

“This is not necessarily the happiest year on record for clean energy,” Murkowski said. “You’ve lost policy support at the federal level. Not really sure on any given day what the day is going to hold, what orders may be given, what projects may be impacted…It’s not just unfortunate. I think it’s unfair. I think it’s certainly counterproductive, and yet this is where we are.”

Murkowski later called out one “impacted project” by name: 

, which the Trump administration halted construction on last month. She also advocated for an “

” energy strategy, which many clean energy-supporting Republicans favor. The Trump administration has seemed to spurn the strategy by targeting solar and wind energy.

“The worst thing that we can do is take the resources off the table,” Murkowski said. “Nothing good will come from halting already permitted, nearly complete projects.”

The saving grace that will get renewables back on the table, she said, will be 

. Because renewable energy is the cheapest form of power and the fastest to deploy, Murkowski said “nothing changes minds and policies like rising prices.”

Clean energy tax policy experts that spoke on a panel after Murkowski’s speech echoed that sentiment.

“The best news, given all the headwinds that the sector faces, is that [energy] demand is growing,” climate change policy consultant Joe Britton said. Rising prices will “catch up with” Republicans “and consumers are pushing back,” he said.

And like Murkowski, Britton said that the Trump administration breaking promises and rescinding permits hurts the renewable industry and the country’s ability to meet rising energy demand as a whole.

“The value of the permit itself for this sector is diminished, because if the permit can be yanked, if it’s not going to be defended in court, if [grants and] loans are going to be pulled back,” Britton said, “those are all really concerning elements in this marketplace.”

Murkowski, experts forecast rocky road for renewables at National Clean Energy Week

The Alaska senator’s remarks were interrupted by protesters lambasting her for voting for Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Extreme weather is becoming a more frequent part of day-to-day life, and long-range forecasting can help governments and businesses alike prepare for severe weather.

Planette’s subscribers are usually businesses with physical assets that might be environmentally vulnerable. But now, the company is working with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Sciences to forecast extreme weather using AI and quantum computing algorithms.

In an interview with Tech Brew, Planette CEO Hansi Singh said the company trains AI on existing models of Earth, like those used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that contain the physics of how the ocean and atmosphere interact with each other. Then, its AI is able to forecast extreme weather up to six months in advance.

“If you invest in the training [the AI], then the actual inference where you produce the forecast, either daily or weekly, is super, super, super cheap,” Singh said. “That is the advantage of the AI, because you can learn the physics, but you can run it extremely efficiently.”

Through the company’s partnership with NASA, Singh said they’re working on QubitCast, which will forecast “one-off events”—like extreme weather—using “quantum algorithms that are even more efficient” than AI algorithms.

“That analysis would really help increase the time horizon over which you can see that an extreme event has a certain probability of occurring,” Singh said. “My goal is to make it so that every agency, every business that has some environmental vulnerability is looking at forecasts like this, knows what’s ahead, and is preparing adequately.”

QubitCast is still in the research and development stage, as is another AI forecasting model the company is working on with the National Science Foundation. Singh said she’s excited about the progress on both projects, especially because they’re focused on adapting to the effects of the climate crisis.

“Depending on how fast we get our act together—or don’t get our act together in terms of the energy transition—that adaptation is going to be huge and expensive and potentially painful,” she said. “To minimize that painfulness, we really need to be investing in adaptation technologies.”

How Planette helps NASA use quantum principles for weather forecasting

The long-range weather forecasting company trains AI on existing physics-based models of Earth.

The debate over how the US will satisfy energy demand from data centers, EVs, and rising electrification continued this week in a divided Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing.

Republicans and Democrats offered different solutions to the problem, and were split on recent energy permitting executive orders from the Trump administration.

Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) opened the hearing by claiming that wind and solar power aren’t reliable sources of energy—even when paired with battery storage—and that the US has “spent much of the last 20 years shutting down the generation that can actually meet that demand,” like coal- and natural gas-fired power plants.

“The federal government has been investing heavily in certain green energy technologies for decades, handing out tax credits like candy,” Lee said. “Renewables and storage have a place. They’re capable of helping do their part to make the grid more resilient and reliable, but 

And when faced with the reality of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from carbon-intensive energy sources like coal and natural gas, Lee and hearing witness Peter Huntsman advocated for making materials lighter so they require “less energy” to manufacture. Huntsman is the CEO of chemical manufacturer Huntsman Corporation, and said in the hearing that using only renewable energy sources “risk[s] losing both our manufacturing and consumer affordability.”

“Ruinous and unrealistic net-zero and decarbonization policies,” Huntsman said, foster the “failed idea…that you can power a modern economy without developing oil and gas resources.”

Democratic members of the committee, including Ranking Member Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), advocated for an “all of the above” energy strategy, which has been touted by 

 in the House, and cited batteries’ ability to provide stable, reliable power. Heinrich in particular bashed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” for phasing out clean energy tax credits that fast-tracked renewable power generation, and a recent Trump administration policy that requires Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to provide an “elevated review” of all proposed wind and solar projects on federal lands.

“I am deeply disturbed by the recent Department of Interior policy,” Heinrich said. “This nakedly political decision will risk delaying new generation additions to the grid when we need them the most.”

Democrats were also joined by Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in highlighting the importance of renewable energy. She cited off-the-grid communities in Alaska that usually have to rely on expensive diesel fuel to power their 

“If they can get 20% of their diesel-powered consumption offset by some incremental wind and solar, it’s 20% that they’re not spending [on diesel],” Murkowski said. “We’re operating in different worlds.”

Hearing witness Rob Gramlich, president of energy consulting firm Grid Strategies, presented a separate perspective on the energy generation divide, and one that has come up in debates about other national issues: It should be left up to the states.

“Each state uses markets or regulation or various combinations of investor-owned and other types of utilities to meet their power demand needs. And that’s where the process should take place,” Gramlich said. “I don’t think the federal government needs to be meddling right now in specific power plants.”

Still, Gramlich advised states to utilize the aforementioned “all of the above” approach.

“The power system is more like a basketball team. The point guard doesn’t do what the center does, and vice versa. You need it all,” Gramlich said. “Particularly in this moment of rapidly rising low growth, we can’t be taking one of those players off the court.”

Senators debate wind and solar power in energy demand hearing

Hearing witnesses offered competing strategies in the face of the country’s mounting energy needs.

Frequent wildfires and other severe weather events in Oregon often leave communities at the end of power lines without electricity. Now, thanks to two new state laws, tribes, municipalities, and third-party developers looking to set up and own microgrids in rural areas will soon have the legal and regulatory framework to do so.

Governor Tina Kotek recently signed House Bill 2065, which requires public utilities to provide groups needing microgrids in their area with the required information, and House Bill 2066, which calls on the state’s Public Utility Commission to “establish a regulatory framework for allowing the ownership, deployment, and use of microgrids and community microgrids within the service territories of electric companies,” into law. Both are the first of their kind in the country.

“Red tape should never get in the way of technology that could mean the difference between fast, efficient electricity restoration and delays and risk when power outages strike,” Kotek said in a statement. “These new laws will help bring more microgrids online faster and deliver cost savings to consumers in every part of the state.”

Prior to these laws, entities hoping to build and own their own microgrids faced legal hurdles and bureaucratic bottlenecks when they tried to set them up, Sustainable Northwest President Dylan Kruse told Tech Brew. Sustainable Northwest is a clean tech and regenerative farming nonprofit that helped draft both bills and will help create the regulatory framework.

“We’re seeing increased demand on the grid and decreasing reliability. A lot of communities, particularly in these rural and tribal communities that are out at the end of the line with less reliable infrastructure, are really feeling the brunt of those changes,” Kruse said. “This is about creating another option, another tool in the toolbox. Because it’s going to take an all-of-the-above strategy.”

Kruse said that the laws are “technology-agnostic,” meaning future microgrids can run on any source of energy, but communities looking to install the technology that Sustainable Northwest has talked with are interested in renewables, including solar and hydro power, and backup power using battery storage.

“It’s an important step forward in the evolution of the energy space,” Kruse said of the laws. “And it’s showing state leadership and showing better local leadership for people and rate payers to get the best value out of what they’re ultimately paying for.”

Oregon’s new laws will allow for more community-owned microgrids

The legislation will remove barriers to entry for tribes and municipalities to set up microgrids in rural areas.

TBR-geothermal energy audio embed

Leaders in the geothermal industry came together last month and admitted a hard truth: Geothermal energy isn’t well understood by the public. And to change that, geothermal companies need to come together and work on clear messaging and visuals to help educate the world about geothermal’s potential.

To do so, Kristina Hagström-Ilievska, chief marketing officer at geothermal company Baseload Capital, brought big names in the geothermal market together for a 

 to start a united campaign explaining what geothermal is.

“The [geothermal] bottleneck [is] always that I have to stop to explain it in order to continue to talk about it,” Hagström-Ilievska told Tech Brew. “This is actually a problem. We need more airtime to get more investments, but we don’t get airtime, so we don’t get investments.”

Geothermal is energy derived from heat stored within the earth’s crust, or rock underground. That heat can be in the form of steam or hot water. Geothermal energy can be used directly for heating or indirectly by converting it into electricity, and is extracted by drilling wells into the ground.

Because geothermal energy depends on pulling something out of the Earth, like oil and natural gas, it might not seem like a renewable energy source at first glance. But geothermal sources regenerate over time—some quicker than others—so “that energy is continually percolating up to the surface,” Cornell University Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems Jefferson Tester told Tech Brew.

“Some geothermal wells that are producing fluid have been doing it for 75 years or so with certainly no decline,” Tester said. “Others, though, show decline because it’s not recharging fast enough from the earth.”

That said, geothermal companies can use technology to create geothermal energy where there is heat but a lack of underground fluid, making sources of geothermal energy abundant. And unlike some other renewable energy sources, geothermal is always available and not dependent on weather.

 and enormous potential, it’s still considered an “emerging” technology. Tester told Tech Brew he thinks the reason geothermal isn’t as well-known as solar or wind energy is simple: It’s underground.

“You can’t look at a geothermal system underground like you can look at a wind turbine or a solar field,” Tester said. “Everybody can feel the wind and they can feel the sun, but they really have a hard time appreciating what’s underneath their feet in terms of hotter rock.”

And because geothermal is underground, it also takes more money and time to set up than solar panels or wind turbines. That’s because geothermal that can be converted into electricity comes from deeper in the earth than the kind used for heating, meaning it takes more energy to bring to the surface. Like manufacturing 

, though, the power used to ferry geothermal energy above ground can be renewable.

Despite struggling with obscurity, geothermal had its big break recently thanks to heating pumps. Over a million homes in the US are heated by geothermal pumps, which pull heat from trenches six to 10 feet below ground, or wells that are approximately 500 feet underground.

“[Heat pumps] convinced people that, ‘Hey, this stuff might not be as far off as I think,’” Tester said.

That’s why Tester believes the best way the US can make use of geothermal energy is to use it as the main source of heating in the northern states, which rely on fossil fuels for heating more than other regions in the country.

“That’s where I think geothermal could be the future in many ways,” Tester told Tech Brew. “But we’ve got to make it work better, and we’ve got to get the cost down.”

And as things stand, the geothermal exploration phase, wherein researchers assess potential geothermal zones and resources, depends on large initial investments—investments that Tester said geothermal companies and federal or state governments should go in on together.

Hagström-Ilievska’s Declaration of Communication reached the same conclusion: “[We] want geothermal companies and associations to focus on growing the industry rather than competing with one another,” the open letter reads. Hagström-Ilievska told Tech Brew that she takes inspiration from the 

“They haven’t been selling different technologies of solar,” she said. “They’ve been selling solar—period.”

That’s why she hopes the industry can coalesce around one clear definition of geothermal, one hashtag to use on social media, and a set of publicly available images startups can use to market geothermal and explain it to potential investors.

“If we unite around a way of visualizing, talking about geothermal and so on, it doesn’t mean that you cannot market your own company,” Hagström-Ilievska said. “We just need to unite around the top layer.”

Drilling equipment next to a smoke stack depicting geothermal energy

Why is geothermal energy an emerging technology when it's existed for 100 years?

Tech Brew spoke with geothermal experts about its underestimated power, and how to unite the industry.

Geothermal energy has been around for over 100 years. Why is it still an emerging technology?

, a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) took a more optimistic outlook on how AI will affect the climate crisis—and even claimed that “concerns that AI could accelerate climate change appear overstated.”

The report, which focuses on AI’s energy usage, underscored how under-equipped the electrical grid is for incoming data centers and provided recommendations for how the large amount of energy they consume could be mitigated.

One of the recommendations focused on where data centers are located: Almost half of US data centers are in “five regional clusters,” so the IEA suggested that new data centers be built “in areas of high power and grid availability.” Plus, like a 

 from Duke University, the IEA recommended that data centers operate using on-site generators and do so “more flexibly.”

And the stakes are high: “If the electricity sector does not step up,” the report said, “there is a risk that meeting data center load growth could entail trade-offs with other goals such as electrification, manufacturing growth, or affordability,” a warning 

The report was, however, more reassuring about the effects AI will have on the environment. Though it acknowledged that optimizing AI to stabilize electricity networks won’t be adequate to combat the climate crisis, the report said that “the widespread adoption of existing AI applications could lead to emissions reductions that are far larger than emissions from data centers.”

“AI can be a tool in reducing emissions,” the report said, “but it is not a silver bullet and does not remove the need for proactive policy.”

Data center emissions could be further curtailed—or at least delayed—by the recent news that Microsoft has paused data center construction projects in 

“Data center planning is a multi-year and capital-intensive program we plan for years in advance to ensure we have sufficient infrastructure in the right places,” Microsoft President of Cloud Operations and Innovation Noelle Walsh said in a LinkedIn post. “We are slowing or pausing some early-stage projects.”

Amazon data centers near houses in the Loudoun Meadows neighborhood