India is counting on increasing investments in battery storage to help abate the mounting curtailments of solar power that the grid is currently unable to absorb.
Projects that are not equipped with battery storage are unlikely to find buyers, with almost 42 gigawatts of planned capacity yet to sign offtake contracts, Renewables Secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said on Friday.
The sci-fi-worthy machine soaring 120 feet tall in the hills outside Lynchburg had been all but left for dead — a $400 million experiment that collapsed as the energy economy shifted and the financial prospects for next-generation nuclear technology soured.
The faux eight-story reactor in Lynchburg, built to mimic a nuclear plant but run on electricity so engineers can safely monitor and tinker with it, languished a decade unused on a Liberty University engineering campus.
Now, with the AI build out exploding across the country, a pair of engineering wizards with a nuclear start-up and SpaceX pedigree see in it a lucrative solution to one of the country’s most vexing challenges: powering the proliferation of data centers.
America’s power grid is heading towards a breaking point. Data-center growth and resurgent industrial demand are putting strain on the transmission system, while outdated utility planning continues to lock out mature and cost-effective wire solutions. This is a regulatory bottleneck born from utilities’ monopoly status, not an innovation problem. To unlock affordable capacity, policymakers should require utilities to consider the best-available technologies by default, while utilities themselves modernize planning to reinforce their affordability commitment to customers.
>>>READ: The Wire Inside the Wire: Energy Capacity Hiding in Plain Sight
For decades, utilities strung transmission towers with the same conductors. These lines are built from materials that determine how much electricity can flow without exceeding safe operating temperatures. Advanced conductors, available today, can deliver between 25 and 100 percent more power than the decades-old, sometimes century-old, materials utilities still rely on.
Restringing existing towers with higher-capacity conductors, called reconductoring, is one particular high-value opportunity for this technology. It enables more energy on the same physical footprint at lower long-term cost to consumers, especially when it can defer new construction. So why do utilities reconduct less than 1 percent of transmission lines each year and under-deploy this technology in new construction too?
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A new study by ClearPath and Evolved Energy Research, which I had the chance to review, answers that question directly. The analysis looks at what happens to costs and grid capacity when planning properly accommodates advanced conductors. Today’s grid models select conductors late in the planning process, often after the path of a line is already fixed, blocking opportunities for reconductoring. The study’s distinct innovation is its modelling approach. Instead of evaluating long-term capacity needs and power reliability separately, as conventional planning processes do, it evaluates both questions together. This allows the model to evaluate reconductoring and new construction side-by-side and identify the least-cost way to meet transmission needs on Texas’s ERCOT grid across several growth scenarios.
The study demonstrates the value of reconductoring, especially given large growth in AI and datacenters. In its high-demand scenario, reconductoring accounts for nearly 75 percent of the new transmission capacity added by 2030. But it is not a perfect substitute for new lines. New transmission routes remain a necessary complement, though affordability and reliability both suffer when new construction is the only option considered.
This complementary relationship between upgrades and greenfield lines holds in the long run too. By 2040, a reconductoring-inclusive approach avoids roughly 6,500 miles of new construction—of a total possible 14,479 miles—and saves ERCOT customers approximately $20 billion. Additionally, including reconductoring under the high-demand scenario reduces total transmission costs by 30 percent compared to meeting the same demand with greenfield development only.
Unlocking these savings in practice requires fixing how utilities plan, which directly determines what they build. The researchers’ model confronts planning’s current pitfalls: by iterating between the often-siloed capacity and reliability models, it can test reconductoring, greenfield lines, and different conductor types together, so the least-cost mix emerges early in the planning process. Utilities need to modernize their planning tools with these same principles in mind.
>>>READ: A Growing Grid Needs Market Discipline: Five Principles for Transmission Policy
Legislative direction can spur greater discipline from transmission planners too. Representative Julie Fedorchak’s (R-N.D.) High-Capacity Grid Act would instruct FERC to set a best-available transmission conductor standard for new interstate lines and major rebuilds. Today, utilities earn a profit from customers only on new infrastructure. Because installing or upgrading lines with advanced conductors can defer the need for new construction, utilities have a perverse incentive to keep using old technology. Under this legislation, a utility that installs anything less than the best-available conductor must justify that choice to regulators, ensuring customers are served at the lowest cost instead of subsidizing utility rent-seeking. The bill cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee this summer, with complete bipartisan consensus.
Demand is now growing just as retail electricity prices climb faster than inflation, and that combination should make cost-competitive innovation a priority for utilities, regulators, and legislators alike. Advanced conductors are a clear place to start. Enacting policies and practices that catalyze their deployment at scale could save households and small businesses money, while unlocking the near-term energy capacity America’s economy needs to grow.
Kenya has tripled its long-term target for expanding its renewable energy capacity to meet surging demand and support its industrialization, but that might not result in more affordable power for consumers.
The plan calls for renewable power generating capacity of 5,500 megawatts, up from about 1,500 MW now. That would include 2,000 MW of nuclear power alongside 700 MW of hydropower and new geothermal projects.
That will strengthen the country’s position as a global leader in renewable energy. Kenya already produces 93% of its electricity using renewable sources. But experts say that reforms for utility contracts, electricity grids, financing and pricing are needed to translate clean energy growth into lower cost power for consumers.
Urenco plans to expand uranium enrichment capacity at its U.S. facility in New Mexico by nearly 50 percent, adding 2.1 million separative work units (SWU) to support rising domestic demand for nuclear fuel.
The multi-billion-dollar project will install 24 cascades of gas centrifuges at the National Enrichment Facility in Eunice. The first cascades are scheduled to enter production in 2032, with the remaining units installed through 2036.
Solar energy and batteries are making it easier for utilities to meet surging electricity demand during extreme heat, but prolonged high temperatures are exposing other vulnerabilities in the grid.
Electricity demand rises as air conditioners work harder in extreme heat, while high temperatures can make parts of the system less efficient and put additional stress on equipment. Climate change is extending periods of extreme heat just as electrification and data centers add new loads, leaving parts of the grid working harder for longer.
This article was initially published in The Hill.
The price of oil has been yo-yo-ing dramatically since the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in early 2026 and Iran’s subsequent military control of the Strait of Hormuz. Rather than causing disparate groups to come together to recognize the importance of all forms of energy, this has resulted in some pushing harder for oil and gas and others pressing harder for solar, wind and batteries.
This is a false dichotomy. Both are needed.
>>>READ: America’s Permitting System Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It
A similar situation exists with China — conceptually the Strait of Beijing — which dominates the global refining of critical minerals and related supply chains needed to produce the world’s solar panels. It also manufactures a large share of lithium-ion batteries. The reality is that aggregate U.S. shale production is plateauing — and what follows this “transition” from oil and gas production growth matters.
The shale revolution was one of the greatest technological achievements in American energy history. Through innovation in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. reversed a decades long production decline and now leads the world in oil and gas production. Affordable shale oil and gas helped pull the U.S. out of the 2009 global recession, improved its geopolitical position, and even lowered carbon emissions as natural gas displaced coal in electricity generation.
But geology has the final word. Every shale basin matures and production eventually slows. To extend the life of shale will require bipartisan policy and regulatory reforms, not uninformed, political sound bites. Investment in advanced drilling technologies, digital optimization and enhanced recovery techniques can help.
Permitting reform is also needed, for all sources of energy. Lengthy permitting delays increase costs, discourage investment and slow construction of critical infrastructure. Improved permitting means clearer rules, greater regulatory certainty and an environment that is better cared for.
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But even with extended shale production, what comes next?
Some promote a full-scale “transition” from fossil fuels to solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles. Solar and wind are valuable supplemental technologies in the right settings. But it’s tough to negotiate with physics. Solar, wind and batteries require enormous amounts of land to deploy and back up generation and storage, adding complexity and cost.
Further, they need vast quantities of critical metals and rare earth elements, which must be transported, processed and made into solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and EVs, all dominantly sourced from China. If the U.S. tries to replace shale oil and gas with technologies that are dependent on Chinese-controlled mineral processing and manufacturing, the outcome unavoidably means far greater dependencies on China.
Good for China. Bad for America. And bad for Europe, which continues to increase its dependence on batteries to back up intermittent solar and wind and power EVs.
The backbone of the global energy system must remain affordable, reliable and secure. In terms of electricity, which represents about 20 percent of global end-use energy, natural gas is uniquely positioned to provide flexible, lower-emission electricity while supporting industrial growth and grid reliability.
Advanced nuclear energy offers carbon-free, around-the-clock electricity with extraordinary energy density, a remarkably small land footprint, and is highly affordable once the plant is built. Next-generation enhanced geothermal systems hold potential for low emissions, baseload electricity. These technologies are not competitors to solar and wind. They are teammates.
>>> READ: House Acts to Unlock America’s Geothermal Potential
America must pursue an energy strategy that embraces innovation rather than ideology. It should extend oil and natural gas responsibly while investing aggressively in advanced nuclear, geothermal and grid modernization. At the same time, it must rebuild domestic mining, mineral processing and advanced manufacturing so that it is not dependent on geopolitical competitors.
Energy security has never been about choosing one fuel over another. It is about ensuring that America can compete across the entire energy system. If China controls the materials, processing and manufacturing behind tomorrow’s technologies, the U.S. risks surrendering the security advantage that innovation worked so hard to create.
A China-dominated energy future is not inevitable. But avoiding it will require bipartisan recognition of physics and economic realities, and the same combination of innovation, science, engineering, investment and pragmatic policy that made the shale revolution possible in the first place.
Shale bought America valuable time. Let’s use it wisely.
Scott Tinker is professor emeritus at the University of Texas-Austin. He hosts “Energy Switch” on PBS nationwide, and “Earth Date” on public radio weekly in all 50 states.
C3 Solutions recently co-hosted a roundtable on critical minerals policy, bringing together representatives from government, the policy world, and industry to work through a question that is becoming more urgent in Washington: how the United States can secure the mineral and rare earth supply chains needed for its energy, computing, and defense sectors. Held under Chatham House rules, the conversation covered the policy solutions needed to bring new domestic production online, build robust allied partnerships, and foster innovation to improve supply chain reliability. A few takeaways stood out because they show that the problem is largely one of our own making.
>>>READ: Federal Critical Minerals Investments Need a Cost-Benefit Test
Permitting is the clearest example. Participants noted that the timeline for discovery-to-extraction of minerals in the U.S. averages roughly 29 years, compared to about five in peer jurisdictions like Canada and Australia. That gap isn’t based on differences in our resources or available capital; it results from differences in how mining is regulated and is compounded by open-ended litigation exposure that undermines the economics of mining and refining projects and scares off investors. Participants also agreed that a durable legislative fix will matter more than speedy but volatile executive solutions. Executive actions can accelerate existing and proposed projects, but because the next administration can reverse them, they leave developers exposed to political volatility that predictable rules would not.
The need for durable solutions, especially to self-imposed constraints, resurfaced in discussions of international cooperation and removing obstacles to innovation. Secure supply chains will depend on partnerships with allies, and those work best when treated as genuine two-way relationships between nations with differing objectives. Washington should view critical minerals policy as a place to find compromise with friendly nations rather than as an extension of domestic policy. For instance, accepting that some defense-related demand may need to be opened to trusted partners like Australia and the United Kingdom rather than reserved for domestic projects alone. On innovation, participants identified the central difficulty as commercialization, not scientific breakthroughs. Funding research into new technologies does not, by itself, mean those technologies can meet the cost, purity, and throughput thresholds needed to be competitive.
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The key lesson is that policymakers must first remove self-imposed constraints. That lesson needs to guide how Washington approaches the critical minerals problem. Before instituting sweeping policies that risk creating costs and distortions worse than the supply disruptions and Chinese dependence they aim to solve, Washington needs to weigh the benefits of intervention against its costs.
As the roundtable illustrated, permitting reform leads the list. Without it, new domestic mining or refining may not get built even with heavy government support. Removing trade barriers ranks just as high. Tariffs on friendly nations, especially Canada and Japan, raise the cost of the most realistic near-term alternatives to China while also straining ties with the very nations we should be compromising with to build more robust supply chains. Neither reform requires a difficult cost-benefit tradeoff. They simply stop us from working against our own interests, which makes them and similar fixes the natural place to begin.
Only after that does it make sense to weigh targeted fixes for genuine vulnerabilities. More robust stockpiling, focused on defense needs, could safeguard sectors where the national security risk of a sudden cutoff is highest. Modest efforts to reduce the technical uncertainty of certain high-risk, high-reward innovations, or to address specific problems like workforce development, might be warranted, so long as we remain cognizant of potential pitfalls and put clear limits in place. In an extreme case, more substantial interventions could offset proven, existing market distortions, such as limited countervailing duties to counter Chinese state support for its own minerals industry. But each of these should stay narrow, subjected to explicit boundaries, and clear a genuine cost-benefit test rather than be motivated by panic over our “critical” needs.
>>>READ: Before a Critical Minerals Price Floor, Remove Self-Imposed Barriers
The throughline must be that the risk of true market failure is always weighed against the risk of government failure. China’s dominance of key minerals and the fragility of others’ supply chains do create a legitimate vulnerability. But the current concern is likely overblown. Our long access to cheap minerals has convinced us we cannot live without them, yet markets have a remarkable ability to adapt, often in ways inconceivable to policymakers trying to predict the future.
Government, by contrast, is rigid, and its incentives are frequently misaligned with what is best from an economic standpoint. A costly, permanent response to a threat that proves smaller or shorter-lived than feared is far harder to unwind than it was to enact. The prudent course is to clear away the constraints of our own making and escalate only where a clear and legitimate need for intervention can be justified on the merits.
Read C3 Solutions’ unattributed summary of the roundtable here.
Sage Geosystems has hit a big milestone out on a rugged tract near San Antonio: The startup is producing power from its first next-generation geothermal plant. The system is just the third of its kind to come online in the U.S. as the sector races to commercialize the source of on-demand clean electricity.
The novel geothermal facility in Texas has been running since April, Sage exclusively shared with Canary Media. The Houston-based firm said the 3-megawatt pilot plant has performed reliably and as predicted after more than 120 days of grid-connected operations.
Anthro Energy broke ground on Tuesday on a factory in Louisville, Kentucky, that can make enough battery materials for more than 300,000 electric vehicles.
But the facility’s headline output, 25 gigawatt-hours’ worth of electrolytes, is just part of the story. Anthro’s factory could give solid-state batteries a much needed boost in the U.S.
Battery manufacturers are scouring the planet for materials that aren’t encumbered by “foreign entity of concern” problems — in other words, materials that aren’t somehow controlled by Chinese companies. Anthro hopes its new facility, scheduled to start production in 2028, can help fill that need for many U.S. companies.
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