Climate Clips: Google, Virginia policy makers discuss growing data center demand

Leading tech firm Google, which has invested over $4 billion in Virginia and owns three data center campuses in the northern region of the state, co-hosted a private meeting in Richmond Tuesday alongside the state’s energy department to talk about how electric grid investments can meet data centers’ rising energy needs.

See the full story in the Virginia Mercury.

More DMV News

VDOT Awards $22 Million in Federal Funding for EV Chargers Along Virginia Interstates and Highways
Virginia Mercury
The Virginia Department of Transportation announced the next round of recipients to receive federal funding to build electric vehicle charging stations along interstate and state highways.

Don’t Pump the Brakes on Electric School Buses
Maryland Matters
Unsubstantiated claims about e-buses somehow helping the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) distract from the clear advantages of modernizing our school bus infrastructure and only serve as political theater for some lawmakers to energize a certain segment of their base.

How Would Project 2025’s Energy Implications Manifest in Virginia?
Virginia Mercury
Now that President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans have gained control of the Oval Office and both chambers of Congress, the conservative playbook called Project 2025 may be closer to becoming a reality. It includes a chapter whose author has ties to Virginia’s energy laws and regulation creation process and that calls for major overhauls to the U.S. Department of Energy, including repealing clean energy funding sources, increasing oil and gas production, and streamlining the nuclear approval process.

Friends Say it Was a ‘Ridiculous Idea.’ That Didn’t Stop These Students from Trying to Make Loudoun Co. Cleaner and Greener
WTOP News
Ryan Nisay is one of the founders of a nonprofit organization dedicated to a cleaner, greener Loudoun County. And he’s still in high school.

National and International News

A New Generation of Cheaper Batteries is Sweeping the EV Industry
Canary Media
A form of lithium-ion battery called LFP is becoming increasingly popular among automakers due to its advantages on cost, safety, and materials.

People Fear Renewable Power Grids Are More Prone to Blackouts. The Data Says Otherwise.
Anthropocene Magazine
Electric grids powered by renewables like wind and solar energy are less vulnerable to blackouts, according to a new study. The findings answer a major worry about so-called weather-dependent sources of renewable energy that has driven backlash to these technologies in some areas.

The US’s Easternmost City Could Be a Model for the Country’s Renewable Future
Inside Climate News
If you trace the path of one electrical transmission line up the coast of Maine, through and around the state’s rocky outcroppings, and over a long causeway, you’ll finally reach the island city of Eastport, 40 miles from the transmission line’s origin. Here, at the line’s terminus, sits the U.S.’s easternmost city and the East Coast’s deepest port, once a thriving hub of imports by the sea.

These are the Environmental Rules That Will Likely Outlive Trump
Washington Post
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle much of President Joe Biden’s climate legacy, but one set of environmental policies will be hard to reverse.

Move Over, Data Centers. US Steel Mills Need Lots of Clean Power, Too.
Canary Media
The United States is the world’s fourth-largest steel producer, and today, most of the country’s primary steel is made using coal in scorching-hot furnaces. For steelmakers to shift away from these polluting facilities, they’ll need to use huge amounts of clean energy and adopt cutting-edge technologies.