Texans have long championed free enterprise and competition. Over 25 years ago, our state was one of the first to deregulate most of our electricity market, unleashing billions in private investment and innovation. We know that when businesses compete, consumers win. Yet today, one critical part of our electric system remains shielded from competition by outdated...
China Approves 10 New Reactors in Nuclear Power Ramp-Up
China’s State Council approved 10 new reactors on Sunday in a vote of confidence for nuclear power to remain central to the nation’s clean energy transition. It’s the fourth year in a row that China has approved at least 10 new reactors. The nation has 30 under construction, nearly half the global total, and is...
Texas lawmakers weigh opening $5B energy fund to geothermal amid attacks on renewables
A Republican-authored proposal in the Texas Legislature seeks to open up state funds aimed at encouraging fossil fuel development to a form of renewable energy. The bill, which passed unanimously out of committee in the Texas House late Wednesday and now heads to the floor for consideration, could provide a runway for state incubation of next-generation geothermal energy, which uses oil and...
AI economic gains likely to outweigh emissions cost, says IMF
Economic gains from artificial intelligence will boost global output by around 0.5% a year between 2025 and 2030, outweighing the costs of rising carbon emissions by the data centres needed to run AI models, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. An IMF report released at its annual spring meeting in Washington nonetheless noted that those output...
Trump signs order seeking to jump-start mining of the ocean floor
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday that aims to jump-start mining on the ocean floor. Large-scale deep sea mining has never been done — though some companies have pushed for it — but the seafloor is expected to contain valuable materials. A Trump administration official told reporters Thursday that it expects to find manganese, cobalt,...
Orphaned Oil Well Cleanup Expands on Federal Public Lands
A large-scale environmental remediation effort is underway through a public-private initiative. The Well Done Foundation (WDF), in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is working to decommission more than 110 orphaned oil and gas wells across four National Wildlife Refuges. As part of this collaboration, WDF recently marked a major milestone: the successful plugging of...
California’s Fuel Industry Is Shrinking
California will see almost one-fifth of its crude-processing capacity vanish in the next 12 months as two key refineries quit the business of turning oil into fuels. Valero Energy Corp. and Phillips 66 plan to idle a combined 284,000 barrels of daily refining capacity by this time next year, moves that will squeeze the perennially tight motor-fuels...
UK, Eni agree to go ahead with Liverpool Bay carbon capture project
The British government and Italian energy group Eni (ENI.MI) have reached an agreement for the launch of the Liverpool Bay carbon capture (CCS) project, they said on Thursday, opening the way to the construction phase for the initiative. The government said last year it would provide funding of up to 21.7 billion pounds ($28.76 billion) over...
Google signs first offshore wind power deal with CIP in Taiwan
Google has announced the signing of a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) to procure renewable energy from the upcoming Fengmiao 1 wind farm in Taiwan. The agreement marks Google’s first offshore wind PPA in Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region. It will enable Google to secure cost-effective and carbon-free electricity to meet the...
Soil Contamination Puts Global Agriculture at Risk
New research highlights a largely overlooked risk to food production systems: widespread soil contamination by heavy metals. A large-scale analysis of nearly 800,000 global soil samples found that about 17% of the world’s surface soils exceed safe thresholds for at least one toxic metal. For the agriculture sector, that’s a red flag not just for food security, but...









