Canary Media

• Trump launched big new solar tariffs. Here's what it means. August 7, 2026
  A far-reaching new tariff on solar imports promises to both raise the cost of installing the clean energy source and strengthen efforts to reshore solar manufacturing. The White House announced the new tariffs Thursday on imported polysilicon and related products, including silicon-based solar panels and their…
• Can Ford’s affordable new electric truck hit the sweet spot? August 7, 2026
  This analysis and news roundup come from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday. Ford’s first all-electric pickup truck didn’t exactly fly off the lot. The automaker is hoping a lower-cost model will fare better. On Thursday, the automaker rolled out a first look at its forthcoming…
• Trump’s DOE keeps forcing coal plants to stay open. Here’s the latest. August 7, 2026
  See more from Canary Media’s ​“Chart of the Week” column . This story and map will be regularly updated with the latest on the Trump administration’s orders forcing coal plants to stay open. It was shocking back in May 2025 when the Trump administration took the unprecedented step of forcing an old coal plant to…
• The Pentagon's wind farm blockade is over — for now August 6, 2026
  The U.S. Department of Defense has for months refused to conduct routine military evaluations of proposed onshore wind farms, creating a de facto moratorium on the clean energy source at a time of exploding electricity demand. On Thursday, a federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump ordered the agency to…
• Why Trump’s claim that offshore wind is a security risk is ‘ludicrous’ August 6, 2026
  When the Trump administration issued stop-work orders on all five offshore wind projects under construction late last year, it offered one justification: The turbines could compromise national security. Experts were immediately critical of this assertion , not least because it came after months of unrelenting…
• Nuclear startup Oklo splits its first atoms in test reactor August 6, 2026
  Oklo , a publicly traded small-modular-reactor firm backed by OpenAI chief Sam Altman, has become one of the highest-profile companies working on next-generation nuclear energy technologies. Two years ago, it debuted on the stock market and became retail investors’ go-to for betting on America’s atomic renaissance. …
• Ohio steel giant aims to use Biden climate funds for polluting project August 6, 2026
  Steel giant Cleveland-Cliffs was supposed to use up to $500 million from a Biden administration grant to usher in cleaner steelmaking in southwestern Ohio. Now, the company plans to instead put those funds toward a project that locks in old coal-based tech for decades and amps up local air pollution. In a July 23…
• Trump is blocking billions of dollars of grants that would fix the grid August 6, 2026
  In Wisconsin, utility Alliant Energy has called off a project meant to reduce power outages in disadvantaged and tribal communities, after the Trump administration terminated a federal grant that would have supported it. In California, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which has deployed and upgraded…
• The Missing Link to VPP Success? Customer Knowledge. August 6, 2026
  Signs of the momentum behind virtual power plants (VPPs) are everywhere. States including New Jersey, Virginia, and Illinois are advancing legislation and regulations designed to accelerate VPP adoption, hoping to seize the potential of aggregated and managed distributed energy resources (DERs) to simultaneously meet…
• PJM’s big new data center plan: Make the states figure it out August 5, 2026
  PJM Interconnection, the biggest grid operator in the U.S., has finally settled on a plan to prevent data centers from causing other customers’ utility bills to soar further in its 13-state territory. That plan relies heavily on states themselves, and the utilities they regulate, to force data centers to secure…