Net Zero

1. ‘Strategic ambiguity’
2. A new eye on methane
3. Vance vs. mayors
4. Ørsted’s headwinds
5. Front-line pipeline

HBO and a federal judge (separately) take on ESG.

Harris’ ‘strategic ambiguity’

Pressure is mounting on Vice President Kamala Harris to define her vision for energy policy if she wins the White House. So far the Harris campaign has adopted a position of “strategic ambiguity” toward energy, staffers told Reuters, offering few insights on how her policies as president would differ from those she has promoted so far. One exception, Reuters reported, is that she no longer supports a ban on fracking on federal land, a position that was unpopular in the key swing state of Pennsylvania. Energy policy is a minefield, and anything Harris says on the subject will assuredly bother someone. But the lack of guidance is a disservice to investors and voters, Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, a fossil fuel trade group, said. More details seem unlikely to surface when she gives the first major policy address of her campaign on Friday, which is expected to focus on inflation and housing — although, as Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer argues, housing costs too are a climate issue.

A new eye on methane

Elon Musk may have spent the week dabbling in climate denial with Donald Trump, but his space outfit is still working on climate solutions. SpaceX on Friday will launch a mini-fridge-sized satellite to track sources of methane emissions. The satellite, designed by the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, is the second new methane satellite to take orbit via SpaceX recently, following one sponsored by Jeff Bezos’s climate philanthropy in March. The new satellite, which can pinpoint methane sources to within 50 meters, will focus on identifying the world’s largest individual sources of methane, and will make that data publicly available by next year. Remote sensing devices like this are essential for the emerging global network of emissions-based trading and tariff policies, which only work with reliable, transparent, site-specific data.

To tear down the IRA, Vance must face Ohio’s mayors

Mark Messer is no climate activist. The Republican mayor of Lebanon, Ohio, a town of about 20,000 on the outskirts of Cincinnati, recently tweeted a photo of himself with JD Vance — the state’s junior senator — with a message to “make America make sense again.”

But as President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation turns two years old on Friday, people like Messer are emerging as an obstacle to Donald Trump and his running mate Vance’s plans to gut it.

At a rally in Wisconsin last week, Vance excoriated the Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, for supporting the Inflation Reduction Act, which he has called a “green energy scam that’s actually shipped a lot more manufacturing jobs to China.” Yet in his own state of Ohio, Lebanon is nearing completion of a $14 million, 18-megawatt solar array that has been a dream of Messer’s since he joined the local government more than a decade ago. The city’s population was growing faster than its power supply, and it owned a patch of unused land that would be great for a solar farm. But the project was always too expensive. That math changed after the IRA passed, Messer told Semafor, because the law made it possible for municipal governments, which don’t pay taxes, to take tax credits for renewable installations as cash instead of a write-off.

One of the most interesting things about the Inflation Reduction Act is the way in which lawmakers engineered its long-term survival by providing reasons for a broader range of people to tap into the tax credits than might otherwise. The most obvious of these are leaders of Republican-majority states, including Ohio, that have seen the lion’s share of post-IRA manufacturing investment. But a less appreciated climate constituency is tax-exempt entities — including municipal authorities, churches, tribal governments, and nonprofits — that are able to use the IRA’s direct-pay provisions to take advantage of renewable energy and EV tax credits for the first time.

The upshot is that gutting IRA tax credits would shut off a source of free money that many cash-strapped mayors — including Republicans — are thrilled to have. That’s hard to reconcile with the Trump-Vance argument that the IRA is essentially a handout to China. And it could be an increasingly damaging point of tension between the Trump campaign and an influential cohort of local leaders in critical swing states.

Ørsted’s headwinds

Impairment costs that Danish wind developer Ørsted reported for the second quarter as a result of delaying the opening of a huge new project in Rhode Island. Revolution Wind, originally scheduled to open next year, will be pushed back to 2026 because of rising costs, the company told shareholders this week. Ørsted is also scrapping its plan to build a low-carbon fuels production facility in Sweden, so it can focus on stabilizing its push into the US wind market. Its share price is down 9% this week.

Front-line pipeline

Natural gas prices in Europe hit their highest point of the year after satellite images showed damage to the pipeline station that Ukrainian forces seized last week during their incursion into Russia.

The Sudzha station is the only access point for Russian pipeline gas crossing Ukraine into Europe, and remains a vital source of energy for Austria, Slovakia, and other countries that have been slow to pivot to other sources. It is also the route for about half of Russia’s total gas exports, making it a critical source of income for the Kremlin. Satellite images this week showed that an administration building and at least one of the station’s four compressor facilities were damaged, according to Rystad Energy. Transit volumes are down about 11% from before the incursion, according to the Energy Policy Research Foundation.

Ukraine and Russia have pledged to keep the gas flowing — it’s a vital source of income for both countries. But energy diplomacy tensions are rising following the release of a German arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national suspected of participating in the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream subsea gas pipeline, new details of which were published in a thriller-like read in The Wall Street Journal. Tensions are also rising within Ukraine, as lawmakers debate whether to import Russian-made nuclear power plant components and a former deputy energy minister faces corruption charges.

Why isn’t the Trump campaign hack newsworthy? Eight years ago, Wikileaks dumped a trove of emails before the public, leading to revelations about Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches and John Podesta’s secret to a great risotto. Today, we’re not sure if any amazing recipes are part of the Trump campaign hack because The New York Times, Politico, and The Washington Post have all declined to report its contents. Ben and Nayeema explore why these two campaign hacks are receiving totally different media treatments and why people are mad at Ben for celebrating today’s editorial restraint. Plus, Mixed Signals talks with Christina Reynolds, a Democratic operative and two-time victim of digital hacks.

New Energy

• The US raised $93 million during a lease auction for offshore wind farms on the mid-Atlantic coast, a welcome success after an auction in the Gulf of Mexico last month was canceled due to low interest.

• Sage Geosystems announced plans to build the country’s first grid-connected geothermal power generation system, in Texas.

Fossil Fuels

• New taxes are straining the UK’s North Sea oil and gas producers, which already faced some of the world’s highest production costs.

Finance

• The number of new forest-conservation carbon offset programs is falling precipitously. Verra, a top offset registry, issued 44.7 million REDD+ credits last year, but only 4.2 million so far this year.
• Missouri lawmakers blocked investment firms from considering ESG risks. This week, a federal judge overruled them, saying the policy had no basis in federal law.

Tech

• Big Tech is in a big fight about how to tally its emissions.
• Meanwhile, the data center boom is already driving up wholesale power prices in the US, to the delight of utility investors.

Politics & Policy

• It’s not just the White House: The climate stakes are high in a lot of down-ballot elections this year. The New York Times has a guide.
• Project 2025, the conservative policy platform meant as a guide for Trump, would lead to rising emissions and lost jobs.

EVs

• US EV makers are in a race to get below the $30,000 price point.
• An EV battery startup that is pioneering the use of sodium instead of lithium said it will build a $1.4 billion factory in North Carolina.

Mickey Down and Konrad Kay are the creators, writers, directors, and executive producers of the HBO series “Industry.”

• Solar geoengineering might help cool a warming Earth, but research into risks is lacking.
• Nigeria targets crypto accounts worth $38 million in intensified crackdown.
• Global access to safe drinking water may be significantly overestimated.