Latitude Media

Enter our Open Circuit sweepstakes by March 31 to win founding fan merch! Details and entry here: https://lnkd.in/e4Bh5KqD

Elon Musk built Tesla with help from government loans and carbon credits. Today, he’s swinging a chainsaw at the very agencies that launched his empire — while directly undermining President Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. This week on Open Circuit: 🪓 Mass layoffs at DOE hit nuclear security teams and grid operators, forcing officials to reverse course when they realized the impact on critical infrastructure: "These are people who are critical to allowing our grid to function and to actually meeting the goals of this administration." - Katherine Hamilton 🏛️ A sweeping executive order puts FERC under White House political control, threatening regulatory independence: "At a moment when 90% of everything hitting the grid is clean, you could imagine this having wide-reaching consequences." - Stephen Lacey 🔋 In Texas, despite a $5 billion subsidy program for gas plants, developers are walking away — while solar and batteries set new performance records: "The state of Texas is being saved every single day by new battery storage and solar that's getting added to the grid." - Jigar Shah Listen to the full episode on Latitude Media or wherever you get your podcasts: https://lnkd.in/ek_FrzYm

This week: The bewildering contradictions of Trump's energy agenda, the battery market in flux, the Texas test bed, and more. Catch up here ⤵️

Between 2013 and 2023, cultivated meat companies raised a total of nearly $3 billion. But head to the meat department of any American grocery store today, and you won’t find cultivated meat for sale. What happened? And what comes next for the industry? This week on Catalyst, Shayle Kann talks to Isha Datar, executive director of New Harvest, a non-profit focused on developing research in the industry: https://lnkd.in/e37sQ4CB

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has unfrozen all grant funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act, a spokesperson for the organization confirmed in an email to Floodlight late Wednesday afternoon. The announcement appears to release almost $100 billion allocated by Congress under the Biden administration to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse emissions through a large-scale transformation of the U.S. energy system. A spokesperson for a Nevada nonprofit confirmed it has been able to begin accessing the $156 million it was set to receive under the EPA’s Solar for All program. https://lnkd.in/eZW4uVhA

Future-Proofing Data Center Power Infrastructure As AI data centers scale rapidly, securing reliable and cost-effective power is becoming a critical challenge. Traditional grid infrastructure struggles to keep pace, and long-term solutions like advanced geothermal and nuclear are still years away. Join Xendee and Latitude Media for a Frontier Forum exploring how microgrids and multi-year planning can help data center developers navigate grid constraints, reduce costs, and ensure long-term resilience. Event Details: March 11 | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET Virtual Event | Free Registration Xendee’s latest research with the University of Illinois reveals how data centers can cut infrastructure costs by 60–80% through a phased approach to on-site generation. This session will cover real-world case studies from California and Virginia, providing insights into: > Balancing near-term investments with future energy flexibility > Hybrid solutions, including renewables, CHP, nuclear, and natural gas > Planning for evolving technology costs and grid constraints Speakers include Adib Naslé (CEO, Xendee), Michael Stadler, Ph.D. (CTO, Xendee), and Stephen Lacey (Executive Editor, Latitude Media). Register now to join the discussion or receive the recording: https://lnkd.in/giiZxztv #Xendee #LatitudeMedia #Microgrids #UIUC #DER #DataCenters #EnergyResilience #Sustainability #AI 

In the last month, both KORE Power and Freyr Battery (T1 Energy Inc.) have scrapped plans for greenfield factories, in Arizona and Georgia, respectively. Both cited climbing costs and interest rates. The two companies are different in a few key ways — Freyr is a larger, diversified company that had plans to expand into battery manufacturing, while Kore Power is a battery manufacturer — but the announcements are indicative of a broader trend, said Sam Jaffe, principal at 1019 Technologies. “They fall into the same category of jumping on the bandwagon two years ago when things were really hot, and now it looks like they’re stepping off as money gets harder to come by, and also as government support wanes,” Jaffe explained. https://lnkd.in/eguBQSJS

Our Sara E. Baldwin's recent Latitude Media piece dives into how policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels should think about #cleanenergy's role in grid #reliability. 👉 https://lnkd.in/excjrNBB

Sunnova Energy and Sunrun are preparing to release their latest earnings reports later this week, closing out a difficult 2024 that saw a 31% market contraction. And though 2025 has so far not been kind to the industry either, analysts are predicting that 2025 will bring a pretty significant turnaround for residential solar companies. “Last year was the lowest year of residential solar capacity since 2021, and the first annual contraction in the market since 2017, which is pretty crazy,” said Zoë Gaston, a distributed solar analyst at Wood Mackenzie. https://lnkd.in/e__UQBYr

Leila Madrone founded Sunfolding in 2012 with an innovative idea — build a solar tracker using pneumatic “airbags” instead of motors and torque tubes. By 2015, the company was deploying the breakthrough technology in a field test in Davis, California. But in 2023, Sunfolding shut down. What happened? This week on The Green Blueprint: 🌱 On reimagining value: "Our value proposition of preserving the land wasn't accepted as being a good enough value proposition to be worth the risk of us moving forward." 💰 On funding traps: "I think the main mistake I see early stage founders making is that as soon as they think they're ready to raise, they go out to VC and they're not thinking about the long game." 🌊 On maintaining perspective: "So you have these moments where it feels like hope is lost, and then you can't believe how much progress we've made. It is extraordinary. You can't get lost in the waves. You have to see the whole ocean." Listen to the full episode: https://lnkd.in/e4TYxMkv