Profile avatar
willmathis.bsky.social
Reporter at Bloomberg covering energy and climate change. Opinions are my own.
72 posts 594 followers 96 following
Prolific Poster

Norwegian green power developer Statkraft will stop developing new green hydrogen projects, just the latest company to pullback on the much hyped, but very expensive technology in recent months Read my story from December about how the bubble burst: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet... #energysky

Removing these public mapping tools “is actually dumbing down the way the government works,” says Robert Verchick, a climate legal expert at Loyola University. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez says rich energy company executives should pay to keep nuclear power plants operating if they want to keep them online www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #energysky

EXCLUSIVE: Europe is rearming and one country is using defense money to beef up the army's ability to fight climate change. I found it's a growing trend Read the story for free here: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

BMW stock is rising this morning after it reported results that showed EV sales up 32% in the first quarter compared to a year ago, including a 64% jump in Europe. With Elon Musk toxic for many in Europe, Tesla's pain is BMW's gain www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Just the latest major blow to offshore wind as Orsted discontinues the 2.4gw Hornsea 4 project because the investment no longer adds up. This is one of the world’s biggest offshore wind farms and is critical to the UK’s energy and climate goals www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #energysky

Super interesting thread on the Spain blackout last week and the role of renewables and inertia 👇

The BBC spoke to locals near a big English solar farm and found the panels “do not really bother them” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

ICYMI from the weekend: @lauramillan.bsky.social and I looked at why most of Spain's rooftop solar owners weren't shielded from the effects of the blackout - and why most Europeans have panels that don't work when the power is off. Gift link:

Spain's wind and solar power have nearly surpassed all traditional sources. But spending on the grid has lagged behind. During the past 5 years, Spain invested an average of $0.30 on the grid for every $1 spent on renewables, according to BloombergNEF. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #energysky

💡 BLACKOUT MEGA-THREAD: Last week I was working at the Bloomberg office in Madrid when the humming of the ventilation system suddenly went quiet. That felt quite nice. But when we looked out the windows, we realized traffic lights were off. That's when we knew something serious was going on

Danish wind turbine company Vestas released its earnings statement this morning. The company, which does a lot of business in the US, said that tariffs are likely going to drive up power prices www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Apparently AI chat bots are getting worse, not better. Worth noting that companies like OpenAI lose tons of money and have no clear product to sell. Worth having a listen to @edzitron.com’s podcast for a deep dive critical look at OpenAI I don’t see much www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/t...

Spain’s solar power output is expected to keep breaking records

It's still unclear what exactly caused Spain's blackout Monday. But frequency data shows that the grid was already under stress for at least a half hour before the system broke. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #energysky

While gas, coal and nuclear power stations are almost completely offline in Spain, solar and wind are providing over 80% of Spain's electricity. Solar will also shut off come sunset, but the wind is set to pick up this evening by some lucky coincidence #energysky

Spain's grid operator said the blackout was caused by something called oscillation. Here's a little explanation on that and how it can cause a chain reaction that leads to a blackout. Follow the @bloomberg.com live blog on the blackout here: www.bloomberg.com/news/live-bl... #energysky

Massive power outage happening now in Spain. Here's a chart from the Spanish grid operator showing demand plummeting (the yellow line) as the blackout started #energysky demanda.ree.es/visiona/peni...

Investment in renewable power surpassed investment in oil and gas back in 2020 and green power has just grown its lead since then Read @davidfickling.bsky.social on looking past headlines that might make you think clean energy spending is down and out www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The US set new duties as high as 3,521% on solar imports from four Southeast Asian countries, following an investigation sought by domestic solar manufacturers and initiated under former President Joe Biden. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Microsoft created a new state of matter, but people think tech companies won’t be able to figure how to train and run AI models without consuming exponentially more electricity www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/t...

The UK government wants to cut down on red tape and let builders build. Meanwhile the country’s only nuclear power plant under construction might be delayed again as EDF decides whether or not to build an underwater sound system for fish conservation www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Despite Trump's anti-wind executive orders, investment in new wind farms is set to surge in the coming years. As of now, it looks like Trump will beat his own record for new wind capacity added in a four-year term www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

A 95-year-old woman who survived the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, the Chernobyl disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic was killed by a driver as she crossed the street outside her Brooklyn home on Thursday. gothamist.com/news/woman-w...

Since 2023 Capgemini has been offering employees interest-free loans of up to £5,000 to buy heat pumps or other green tech for their homes. So far only 10 out of more than 14,000 UK employees have taken them up on the offer www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The lawyer for an Israeli private investigator said for the first time publicly on Wednesday that her client is being prosecuted over allegations that he was hired by an Exxon Mobil lobbyist to hack emails of environmental activists www.reuters.com/world/israel...

In 2024, solar panels produced more power than coal plants in the EU. Wind beat gas for a second straight year. Data via @ember-energy.org www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I have a new paper in Dialogues on Climate Change exploring climate outcomes under current policies. I find that we are likely headed toward 2.7C by 2100 (with uncertainties from 1.9C to 3.7C), and that high end emissions scenarios have become much less likely. journals.sagepub.com...

Has the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) weakened over the last decades? In our new study, we combine state-of-the-art CMIP6 models and observation-based estimates of the air-sea heat flux in the North Atlantic to show that the AMOC has not declined since the 1960s! 🌊

Equinor has retracted a claim that it stores about a million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually at its flagship carbon capture project after DeSmog obtained data showing the real figure was as little as a tenth of that amount www.desmog.com/2025/01/14/e...

Total US electric vehicle* sales grew 7.3% in 2024 to 1.3 million, according to Cox Automotive. Market leader Tesla saw sales shrink for first time, dragging down the US total, while most automakers saw robust growth, led by Honda, Ford, GM & Hyundai/Kia. www.coxautoinc.com/market-insig... 🔌💡 🔌🚗

The severing of Russian pipeline gas flows to Europe make the cover of Polish magazine Wprost www.wprost.pl/tygodnik

More bad news for green hydrogen: one of the most prominent electrolyzed makers, Norway’s Nel, says they’re halting production and laying off staff after orders failed to materialize and customers’ projects are delayed or at risk of cancelation nelhydrogen.com/press-releas...

In an interview with Bloomberg published last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he thinks the best way to prevent AI from hindering the fight against climate change is with fusion power, a technology he says won’t be ready for an unspecified number of years 🤔 www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

“No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute the air; it will not poison our waters. It's free from stench and smog. The sun's power needs only to be collected, stored, and used.” -Jimmy Carter during a May 1978 visit to the Solar Energy Research Institute

On the day when scientists confirm that global warming exceeded 1.5C on an annual basis for the first time in 2024, some other headlines that jump out: Indonesia’s coal production hits a record China’s coal production is set to rise for a ninth straight year www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Genuine question, if Chinese EVs are so much better than American and European ones, why does Tesla sell so many cars in China?

"It felt more like a supercomputer on wheels than any car you can buy in the United States right now." Chinese EV makers show off their advanced cars at CES in Vegas, making auto & tech fans drool and US automakers very nervous. insideevs.com/news/746628/... 🔌💡 🔌🚗

A must read story on devastating levels of hunger in Gaza and what the world means when it talks about famine www.reuters.com/investigates...

Just an incredible chart showing the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on U.S. manufacturing investment from this NYT piece: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Solar power profits. Rising demand for new (cheaper) EVs. A long-awaited recovery for the wind industry. These are some of the reasons to be optimistic about the energy transition heading into 2025, by @davidfickling.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Once hyped as the next big thing in clean energy, the hydrogen bubble completely collapsed this year. Dozens of projects were cancelled. Jobs eliminated. Expectations lowered. It all comes down to cost. It’s too expensive today and it’s going to stay expensive www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

All that rapid and growing clean-energy build is not enough to start the secular decline of coal. The extreme rise in gas prices post-pandemic has reinforced coal's energy-security benefits for India and China. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... by @willmathis.bsky.social