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WCome back to Current Climate. The Trump administration’s hostility to Joe Biden’s clean energy programs has stymied offshore wind and green hydrogen projects and reduced sales of electric vehicles. However, increasing demand for electricity, driven by the rampant growth of power-hungry AI data centers, continues to underpin boom times for the battery storage industry.
The U.S. added 9.7 gigawatt-hours of battery storage capacity in the first quarter, up 32% from a year ago and a record for the period, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. At the current rate, the country could have over 610 GWh of energy storage by 2030. Much of this capacity is combined with solar and wind systems, helping to limit the increase in climate-distorting carbon emissions from electricity generated from fossil fuels.
“Energy storage is no longer just for backup; it is critical energy security infrastructure,” said Benchmark Mineral researcher Shan Tomouk.
That demand has led companies such as Ford and General Motors to redirect battery projects away from EVs, whose U.S. sales fell 27% in the first quarter after Trump eliminated a $7,500 federal tax credit, and into the energy business, an area in which Tesla has competed for years.
While the battery boom is a positive development, total U.S. investment in clean technology fell 9 percent in the quarter from a year ago to $61 billion, according to The Clean Energy Monitor. That decline largely reflected a decline in EV sales from a year ago. Unfortunately, announced cleantech manufacturing investment plans totaled just $2 billion in the quarter, a 79% plunge from the first quarter of 2025 and the lowest level in more than five years.
If the Trump administration realizes that its antipathy toward renewables has gone too far in hurting economic growth and driving up energy prices, that could change. For now, however, the global renewable energy boom that has accelerated as a result of Trump’s war on Iran seems likely to bypass the U.S.
The big read
Tesla Chairman and CEO Elon Musk introduces the new ‘Semi’ electric truck to buyers and reporters on November 16, 2017 in Hawthorne, California, near Los Angeles. / AFP PHOTO / Veronique DUPONT (Photo credit should be VERONIQUE DUPONT/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
California hater Elon Musk needs government subsidies to launch Tesla’s Semi
Two decades ago, when Tesla was a scrappy Silicon Valley startup, California’s pollution rules allowed it to make free money by selling emissions credits to automakers that sold big gas hogs. Its wealthy, environmentally-minded consumers became the backbone of its electric car business. This started the modern EV industry and helped make CEO Elon Musk the richest man in the world.
He wasn’t kind about it.
Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters from California in late 2021. He left California a year earlier after an earnings call about “fascist” rules that required Tesla to briefly halt production at its Fremont factory at the start of the Covid-19 crisis and said the state’s regulatory agencies “are illegal.” He claimed that the idea that Tesla relies on subsidies is farcical. “Remove subsidies. It will only help Tesla,” he wrote in 2024. “Also, remove subsidies from all industries!”
Now the Golden State, with the nation’s most generous clean-truck incentives and a huge truck sector, is helping ex-California Musk once again by serving as the primary first market for Tesla’s latest offering.
The Tesla Semi — Musk’s battery-powered heavy-duty truck that debuted nine years ago and finally went into production in Nevada in April — has so far drawn more than 1,200 California “HVIP” vouchers for buyers of the $172 million zero-emissions heavy-duty vehicle. That’s double the number given to Tesla’s closest competitor. Those coupons knock $120,000 off the Semi’s sticker price, which ranges from $250,000 for a 300-mile version to $290,000 for the 500-mile model, based on a copy of Tesla’s pricing sheet obtained by Forbes. And with an additional $1 billion in new funding for zero-emission trucks announced on May 13, the state is poised to be even more critical for Tesla.
Read more here
Hot topic
VEMA Hydrogen CEO Pierre Levin wants to find customers for the company’s low-carbon “engineered mineral hydrogen” produced underground
You have potential agreement on the supply of hydrogen you create in Quebec at Charbone, a Canadian industrial gas company. Are you going to pipe it to them or truck it?
No. Our strategy is that we don’t want to transport or store hydrogen because that’s too expensive and that kills the economics of everything we do. What good is being able to produce low-cost hydrogen if all the benefits are lost in transportation?
What we produce is basically raw [hydrogen] gas. We can do primary purification, remove some CO2 and water, but we can’t do advanced purification of hydrogen. This is a specific technology. We might do that, but honestly, why improvise hydrogen refineries if your partner can do it? Better to focus on what we are good at: hydrogen production.
Basically, Charbone’s part of the deal is that they refine the hydrogen from the well and then transport it to their partners and customers. This is very good for them because they don’t have the hydrogen, at least not carbonized, at a good price.
Charbone’s whole strategy is to transform hydrogen on-site, which can then be used for electricity for data centers, high-purity hydrogen for specialized uses, or can [turned] to methanol, for example, for the marine industry, to SAF for the aviation industry, and so on. And it can be used for a new one: e-methane. We are seeing more and more demand for e-methane at a decent price. At the moment, most e-methane projects are completely underwater because when you look at the economics, you just run. The main culprit is the cost of hydrogen. But if you get hydrogen at a decent price, then you can have electronic methane at a price competitive with classic methane.
Charbone specializes in the distribution of high purity hydrogen in Canada. We started discussions a while ago. …They are very interested because they need a source of clean hydrogen at a decent price, which is almost non-existent, especially in Quebec, because most of the green hydrogen projects are very expensive or have just failed.
When we told them we were starting to produce hydrogen in Quebec, they were very interested and we made a deal. For us, it is extremely interesting because the type of customer that Charbone is targeting is usually either mobile or specialty customers who need high purity hydrogen. And the amount of hydrogen used by these customers is a bit small compared to our main markets.
Charbone, we see them selling to transportation customers like buses that use hydrogen, trucks that use hydrogen, and what we call special users that need very high purity hydrogen.
Do you share the financial terms of the agreement?
I don’t think so. I will tell you that the price is good enough for us and good for them. We will make money. They will make money.
What else are we reading?
Trump is easing restrictions on climate “superpollutants” (New York Times)
The UN General Assembly embraces the court’s opinion that nations have a legal obligation to take climate action (Inside Climate News)
Young Americans demand federal court to stop Trump’s biggest reversals on pollution protection measures (The Guardian)
Denver has a plan to heat and cool buildings without fossil fuels. Does it include … sewage? (NPR)
