Category: Climate

Germans Pay 4x More for Electricity Than Hungarians in Capitals
In a stark illustration of diverging energy policies across Europe, households in Berlin shelled out more than four times the electricity costs of their counterparts in Budapest during the second half of 2024, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). While German consumers grapple with some of the continent’s highest rates—averaging 41.08 euro cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in October—Hungarians enjoyed the European Union’s lowest at just 9.34 euro cents per kWh, thanks to aggressive government price caps that have shielded families from the post-pandemic energy crunch.
The disparity underscores Hungary’s unorthodox approach to utility regulation, which has kept bills low amid broader EU efforts to diversify away from fossil fuels and curb inflation. Yet, as Budapest basks in the benefits, Brussels is growing impatient with the model’s heavy dependence on Russian natural gas—a lifeline that could snap under mounting geopolitical pressure.
Eurostat’s latest figures paint a vivid picture: Germany’s residential electricity price topped the EU charts at 41.08 euro cents per kWh last October, more than double the bloc’s average of around 28.72 euro cents per 100 kWh in the second half of 2024. Hungary, by contrast, clocked in at a fraction of that—9.34 euro cents—making Budapest the cheapest capital in the EU for household power, while Berlin claimed the unwanted crown of most expensive. A Finnish analysis by VaasaETT pegged the EU-wide average as roughly 2.8 times higher than Hungary’s tariff, with prices exceeding 30 euro cents in nine other capitals, including those in Denmark, Ireland, and the Czech Republic.
At the heart of Hungary’s bargain is a two-tiered price cap system, in place since August 2022, designed to protect consumers from market volatility. The “classic” rate caps electricity at 36 Hungarian forints (about 0.09 euro cents) per kWh for the first 2,523 kWh annually—enough for a typical household. Beyond that threshold, a still-subsidized rate of 70.10 forints (10.76 euro cents) kicks in, ranking it as the second-lowest among EU capitals examined. This policy, extended through 2025 despite fiscal strains, has drawn praise from everyday Hungarians but fire from opposition lawmakers who decry it as unsustainable, arguing the government’s subsidies—funded partly by windfall taxes on energy firms—balloon the state budget deficit.
The real-world impact? For an average two-earner household with median income, utilities devour just 1.7% of monthly earnings in Budapest, per calculations from Hungary’s Energy and Public Utilities Regulatory Office using October data. That’s a lighter load than in Berlin (2.5%), Brussels (2.2%), or—worst of all—Lisbon (6.1%). When adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPS) in the first half of 2025, Hungary’s effective rate of 15.01 PPS placed it second only to Malta (13.68), far below the Czech Republic’s punishing 39.16.
The IEA’s report, which emphasizes the need for renewable investments to drive affordability, highlights these cross-border variances as a cautionary tale for Europe’s energy transition. “Prices can vary greatly between countries,” the agency noted, urging a balanced push toward green sources without sacrificing access. In Germany, where the Energiewende has prioritized renewables but spiked costs through network fees and green levies, households face a 44.11 euro cents per kWh average for 2024—up from pre-crisis levels.
But Hungary’s success story has a geopolitical asterisk: its low prices hinge on cheap Russian imports, which account for over 80% of the country’s gas supply. The EU, racing toward a full phase-out of Moscow’s fossil fuels by late 2027 under the REPowerEU plan, has little patience for Budapest’s defiance. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has repeatedly pressed Hungary to submit a divestment roadmap, warning in September that the bloc would accelerate sanctions on Russian LNG and pipeline gas. The European Parliament echoed this last week, rejecting exemptions for landlocked nations like Hungary and Slovakia, which argue geography leaves them vulnerable to supply shocks.
Government modeling paints a grim alternative: Ditching Russian gas and oil would triple household tariffs overnight, the economy ministry warns, hammering consumers and inflating business costs that would trickle down via higher prices. “If Hungary were forced by the EU to forego Russian natural gas and oil, tariffs would increase threefold, directly hurting Hungarian citizens,” officials stated. Even as the U.S. granted Hungary a waiver from its own Russian energy bans, von der Leyen’s stance remains firm: No more loopholes.
Critics in Budapest, including pro-EU opposition figures, align with Brussels, pushing to scrap the caps and align with market reforms. “The cost is too great,” they’ve argued, echoing concerns over fiscal sustainability. Yet for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s administration, the policy is a populist win, shielding voters from the energy poverty afflicting neighbors. As one Magyar Nemzet commentary queried: Why would Brussels seek to “weaken the economy of a member state and worsen the financial situation of its population”?
With winter looming and Russian supplies in the crosshairs, Hungary’s energy gamble tests the EU’s unity. For now, Budapest’s lights stay affordably on—but at what long-term cost?
November 20, 2025
Debate Over Clean Energy Tax Policy Will Help Shape America’s Economic Future
As Republicans look to broker a sweeping budget deal, top GOP leadership in the House of Representatives unveiled a series of cuts this week to the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) aimed at tackling climate change. This includes proposing to curtail tax credits for clean electricity generation and domestic clean technology manufacturing. To enact the proposed language would deal a swift blow to U.S. efforts to cut emissions and transition to cleaner energy sources. It would also stifle a surge in manufacturing investment that has swept much of the country.
“It will come to a screeching halt without the credits,” says George Strobel, co-CEO at Monarch Private Capital, which finances solar projects. “That’s just the way it is.”
Since the language was announced on May 12, many Senate Republicans, who would need to approve the measure before it becomes law, have balked, fearing that such a pullback would kill jobs in their home states and harm American businesses. For that reason, they say, the language should represent a starting point, certain to be revised in the lengthy negotiations necessary to approve the changes. “Anything that comes over from the House, almost by law, we’ve got to redo,” Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters.
The debate on the fate of the clean technology tax incentives is likely to center on immediate concerns: on one side jobs and the implications for American businesses and, on the other, simple number crunching to fund other priorities including a continuation of broad corporate tax cuts. But jobs in congressional districts and U.S. carbon emissions represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the massive implications of a U.S. pullback from clean technology.
The U.S. is already behind in developing an economy around mature technologies—namely wind, solar, and electric vehicles. To nix IRA incentives without a considered replacement would effectively wave the white flag, acknowledging that the U.S. has no plausible way to catch up. Perhaps more significantly, abandoning the incentives would make it even more difficult for the U.S. to capture the market of early-stage technologies where the country can still compete—think of geothermal, advanced forms of nuclear energy, and hydrogen, to name a few.
All of this is of significant consequence for the shape of the global economy. China already dominates manufacturing in technologies like electric vehicles and, with an absent U.S., could do the same with future tech, too. All of which is to say: these negotiations will matter for decades to come. “To some extent, I think it’s hanging in the balance,” says Greg Bertelsen, CEO of the Climate Leadership Council, a non-profit that works at the intersection of climate and economic policy. “This is a critical period of time.”
To understand what enacting the proposed changes to tax incentives would mean, it’s helpful to sit with some numbers. In a research note Tuesday, the Rhodium Group said that the cuts would risk “a meaningful amount” of the $522 billion clean technology manufacturing investment already in the pipeline in the U.S. It could result in a greater than 70% decline in domestic clean energy deployment through 2035—and higher electricity prices for consumers and industry alike.
The clean technologies in question are part of a global market expected to total more than $100 trillion by 2050, according to a 2022 report from the Boston Consulting Group. And the ripples extend beyond clean tech: higher energy prices would make the U.S. a less attractive place for AI and manufacturing investments.
In the past, a U.S. pullback might have been enough to derail this global clean tech momentum. The U.S. is, after all, the world’s largest economy. But, in 2025, the rest of the world is less likely to shift gears in response to one administration.
A big reason for that is China. The country has become a manufacturing hub for a wide range of clean technologies and has facilitated their export around the world. And, in many cases, the clean technologies manufactured there have simply become better than traditional alternatives. Chinese electric vehicles, for example, are widely thought to offer a better experience at a lower price point than anything coming out of the U.S. or Europe. (Indeed, they’re quickly expanding not just in China but around the world.) More broadly, in parts of the developing world, solar power has become cheap enough that it’s the fastest and simplest way to rapidly electrify.
Since President Trump took office, I’ve spent much of my time outside of Washington, talking to policymakers and business leaders from around the world. As shocked as many have been by the Trump Administration’s assault on climate policy, few have expressed interest in following suit and instead continue to see opportunity in green investments.
And so the question for members of Congress is how much, if any, of that $100 trillion market they want to capture. The text proposed by GOP House leadership is just the start of the discussion and unlikely to become law in its current form, but for those looking to capture a share of the future of energy technologies it isn’t an encouraging one.
May 25, 2025
Trump Directs Accelerated Expansion of Nuclear Power Plants
President Trump signed four executive orders on Friday aimed at accelerating the construction of nuclear power plants in the United States, including a new generation of small, advanced reactors that offer the promise of faster deployment but have yet to be proven.
One order directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the nation’s independent safety regulator, to streamline its rules and to take no more than 18 months to approve applications for new reactors. The order also urges the agency to consider lowering its safety limits for radiation exposure, saying that current rules go beyond what is needed to protect human health.
Another order directs the Energy and Defense departments to explore siting reactors on federal lands and military bases, possibly alongside new data centers. That could allow the agencies to bypass the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and develop their own, faster processes for approving reactors.
The Trump administration also set a goal of quadrupling the size of the nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants, from nearly 100 gigawatts of electric capacity today to 400 gigawatts by 2050. One gigawatt is enough to power nearly 1 million homes.
“This is a huge day for the nuclear industry,” said Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, as he stood behind Mr. Trump at a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. “Mark this day on your calendar. This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of overregulation.”
In one of his first acts in office, Mr. Trump declared a “national energy emergency,” saying the country did not have enough electricity to meet its growing needs, particularly for data centers that run artificial intelligence. While most of Mr. Trump’s actions have focused on boosting coal, oil and natural gas, administration officials have supported nuclear power, too.
Nuclear power enjoys bipartisan backing in Congress. While some Democrats remain opposed because of concerns about safety and disposal of nuclear waste, an increasing number have embraced the technology because it doesn’t produce planet-warming emissions. It also gets backing from Republicans who say nuclear power plants strengthen U.S. energy security.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to the media after the House narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” (Fox News)
The far-reaching domestic policy bill passed by House Republicans this week aimed to halt federal support for most types of emissions-free power. But the nuclear industry got an exemption: Companies aiming to build new reactors would still be able to get a tax break as long as they begin construction by the end of 2028.
Even so, developing new reactors in the United States has proved enormously difficult.
While the country has the world’s largest fleet of nuclear power plants, only three new reactors have come online since 1996. Many utilities have been scared off by the cost: The two most recent reactors built at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia totaled $35 billion, double the initial estimates, and arrived seven years behind schedule.
In recent years, more than a dozen companies have begun developing a new generation of smaller reactors a fraction of the size of those at Vogtle. The hope is that these reactors would have a lower upfront price tag, making them a less risky investment for utilities. They might also be based on a design that could be repeated often, as opposed to custom-built, to reduce costs.
So far, however, none of these next-generation plants have been built, although projects are underway in Wyoming, Texas and Tennessee.
Some nuclear proponents and companies have blamed the sluggish pace on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must approve new designs before they are built. Critics say that many of the regulations that the agency uses were designed for an earlier era and are no longer appropriate for advanced reactors that are designed to be less susceptible to meltdowns.
“This is an agency that needs be shaken up a bit,” said Jacob DeWitte, chief executive of Oklo Inc., a startup that has developed a small advanced reactor that it plans to build at Idaho National Laboratory. He called the executive orders “incredibly exciting on multiple fronts.”
In one executive order, Mr. Trump directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to undertake a “wholesale revision” of its rules within 18 months and reorganize itself in consultation with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the group formed by Elon Musk. That reorganization could include layoffs, the order said.
While Congress established the nuclear agency to be independent from the White House, Mr. Trump has sought to exert greater authority over independent agencies in recent months.
“The N.R.C. is assessing the executive orders and will comply with White House directives,” said Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “We look forward to continuing to work with the administration, DOE and DOD on future nuclear programs.”
Inside the control room of the Three Mile Island facility, which is being revived to power a Microsoft data center. (George Etheredge/The New York Times)
Skeptics of nuclear power fear that pressure from the White House could cause the agency to take shortcuts on safety. Since the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, in which there were no fatalities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ratcheted up safety requirements. While that has made it harder to build new plants, the country has also not experienced another major nuclear accident.
“Simply put, the U.S. nuclear industry will fail if safety is not made a priority,” said Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a frequent critic of the industry. He added that if another large radiological release were to occur, it would “destroy public trust in nuclear power and cause other nations to reject U.S. nuclear technology for decades to come.”
Even a few nuclear companies and proponents have been nervous about a major shake-up at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They note that the agency has already started streamlining its approval processes in response to bipartisan bills passed by Congress, and that a hasty reorganization could, paradoxically, end up delaying approvals for the nuclear companies that are in the process of getting permits.
“Our assessment is that N.R.C. is already making significant progress on reform,” said Judi Greenwald, executive director of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a pronuclear think tank. “It is in everyone’s interest that this progress continue and not be undermined by staffing cuts or upended by conflicting directives.”
Another order calls on the secretary of energy to develop a plan to rebuild U.S. supplies of enriched uranium and other nuclear fuels, which in recent years have largely been imported from Russia.
But speeding up regulatory approvals won’t be sufficient to revive the nuclear industry, some experts said. The first few reactors that do get built are likely to be enormously expensive, and some sort of government support would likely be required to help companies build reactors at a pace that could drive down costs.
To that end, one of the executive orders directs the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, which currently has roughly $400 billion in lending authority, to make resources available for restarting shuttered nuclear plants and building new reactors. The order sets a goal of having 10 large reactors under construction by 2030.
Yet the loan office has lost more than half its staff this year after a wave of Trump administration layoffs and buyouts, and House Republicans have proposed cutting its budget. Those cuts could hobble a key program for financing new reactors. nuclear supporters have said.
“It’s good to see the focus on building a series of proven large reactors as well as smaller newer designs,” said Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group that supports nuclear power. “But you need serious government financial support to make any of this happen, and get to commercial scale and lower costs. To support the administration’s goals, Congress needs to boost support instead of gutting it.”
May 23, 2025
NOAA Predicts an ‘Above-Normal’ Atlantic Hurricane Season
With the start of hurricane season a little more than a week away, federal forecasters say the United States will likely experience an “above-normal” Atlantic hurricane season.
On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projected 13 to 19 named storms for the Atlantic basin between June 1 and Nov. 30. Out of those, six to 10 are forecast to become hurricanes, or storms with winds of 74 mph or higher. NOAA is predicting three to five major hurricanes, with winds of 111 mph or higher.
Forecasters pointed to several factors that could lead to an above-normal season, including warmer-than-average ocean temperatures.
The agency said there’s a 60% chance that the 2025 season will exceed the annual average of 14 named Atlantic storms.
“NOAA and the National Weather Service are using the most advanced weather models and cutting-edge hurricane tracking systems to provide Americans with real-time storm forecasts and warnings,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose department oversees NOAA. “With these models and forecasting tools, we have never been more prepared for hurricane season.”
Forecasters pointed to several factors that could lead to an above-normal season, including warmer-than-average ocean temperatures, weak wind shear and the potential for higher activity from a monsoon system off the western coast of Africa that serves as a primary starting point for tropical activity.
Last year, the U.S. experienced its deadliest hurricane season since 2005, with more than 400 fatalities, according to the National Hurricane Center’s director, Michael Brennan.
The new forecast comes as National Weather Service offices across the country are grappling with Donald Trump’s sweeping federal cuts. Since January, nearly 600 of the agency’s 4,000 employees reportedly have been laid off or have opted to leave.
As NBC News reported: “The nation’s 122 local forecasting offices have been hard hit and are riddled with vacancies. Many of those offices will be tasked with forecasting local effects after a hurricane landfall, such as flood inundation and rainfall.”
But the Trump administration has dismissed concerns that staffing cuts will have a negative impact. “We are fully staffed at the hurricane center, and we definitely are ready to go. And we are really making this up a top priority for this administration,” Laura Grimm, the acting administrator of NOAA, told NBC News.
May 23, 2025
Data centers’ high energy consumption has the potential to increase electricity costs for all consumers
Individuals and small business have been paying more for power in recent years, and their electricity rates may climb higher still.
That’s because the cost of the power plants, transmission lines and other equipment that utilities need to serve data centers, factories and other large users of electricity is likely to be spread to everybody who uses electricity, according to a new report.
The report by Wood MacKenzie, an energy research firm, examined 20 large power users. In almost all of those cases, the firm found, the money that large energy users paid to electric utilities would not be enough to cover the cost of the equipment needed to serve them. The rest of the costs would be borne by other utility customers or the utility itself.
The utilities “either need to socialize the cost to other ratepayers or absorb that cost — essentially, their shareholders would take the hit,” said Ben Hertz-Shargel, who is the global head of grid edge research for Wood MacKenzie.
This is not a theoretical dilemma for utilities and the state officials who oversee their operations and approve or reject their rates. Electricity demand is expected to grow substantially over the next several decades as technology companies build large data centers for their artificial intelligence businesses. Electricity demand in some parts of the United States is expected to increase as much as 15 percent over just the next four years after several decades of little or no growth.
The rapid increase in data centers, which use electricity to power computer servers and keep them cool, has strained many utilities. Demand is also growing because of new factories and the greater use of electric cars and electric heating and cooling.
In addition to investing to meet demand, utilities are spending billions of dollars to harden their systems against wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves, winter storms and other extreme weather. Natural disasters, many of which are linked to climate change, have made the United States’ aging power grids more unreliable.
That spending is one of the main reasons that electricity rates have been rising in recent years.
American homes that use a typical 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month paid, on average, about $164 in February, according to the Energy Information Administration. That was up more than $30 from five years ago.
Dominion Energy, a large investor-owned utility based in Richmond, Va., is one of those that Wood MacKenzie expects will spend more on new infrastructure than it will be able to recover from selling electricity to data centers and other large users. More data centers have opened in Virginia than in any other state.
Asked about Wood MacKenzie’s filings, Dominion said that on April 1 it filed a proposal to electricity regulators in Virginia for requiring large-load customers to pay their “fair share” of utility costs.
“Ensuring a fair allocation of costs and mitigating financial risk are not new concepts to the company,” Edward H. Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, said in testimony that Dominion submitted to state regulators and provided to The New York Times. “Addressing both the needs and the risks associated with growth in high-load electric customers with high-load factors is both a public policy and a regulatory priority for Virginia.”
A 2024 analysis by Virginia officials concluded that data centers paid the full cost of the service they received. But that report warned that the addition of many more large users of electricity could raise rates for all users if the state did not make policy changes to protect individuals and small businesses.
Wood MacKenzie’s report found that some states do have policies to protect individuals and small businesses from higher rates. Chief among them is Texas, where customers can pick a power source that is different from the utility that maintains the lines that deliver electricity to their homes.
This arrangement, according to Wood MacKenzie, helps protect individuals from having to pay for grid upgrades that mainly or entirely benefit large users.
Mr. Hertz-Shargel said many utilities also had programs that allowed large electricity users to buy emissions-free energy directly from power producers like solar and wind farms. Such programs, he said, could be refashioned to help ensure that the cost of new power projects is largely or entirely borne by the users responsible for major grid upgrades.
The policies that states and utilities have put in place will significantly reduce risks of spreading the costs of improvements for the large-load customers, but “they do not provide complete protection,” Mr. Hertz-Shargel said. “Only by removing data-center-caused infrastructure from utilities books, such as by allowing large loads to contract with third parties for generation via clean transition tariffs, are both ratepayers and utility shareholders fully protected.”
May 16, 2025