Switched On

The Trump administration has made no bones about its desire to revitalize the US’s nuclear power industry. With four new executive orders hot off the president’s desk, nuclear is being treated as a silver bullet, capable of meeting AI power demand while shoring up the country’s energy independence. The US is also looking to counter China and Russia, which in recent years have led the way in nuclear technology roll...

Solar module prices have been cratering in recent years, dragged down by global oversupply. Yet while this glut of photovoltaics has hammered manufacturer profits, it has also allowed emerging economies that are hungry for affordable energy to get into the solar game, and demand growth is still strong this year. So what lies ahead for this notoriously tricky market, could energy storage help mitigate electricity price spikes, and w...

The oil and gas sector invested $33.4 billion in the energy transition last year. Yet while this figure suggests that decarbonization is a serious consideration for some fossil-fuel majors, just seven companies accounted for 85% of the sector’s low-carbon spend in 2024, and only 13 of 41 companies assessed raised low-carbon investment as a share of capex. So what are the different strategies oil and gas companies are pursuing...

Europe is making quick work of executing large industrial decarbonization infrastructure projects. The continent now boasts large-scale facilities for carbon capture, storage and transit in the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy and Norway. But how have policymakers managed to incentivize and facilitate the installation of these massive projects, and what’s required to push the sector even further? At the 2025 Bloomberg...

Extreme weather has always meant extreme risks for businesses and investors. Yet climate change has varied the calculus, and many businesses are facing new, potentially existential risks as the world and the energy transition heat up. As such, central banks and financial supervisors have begun conducting climate risk stress tests, to ensure these institutions are capable of mitigating the potential impacts of a changing climate. Bu...

A United Nations-led aviation decarbonization scheme could offer some respite for carbon credit markets mired in controversy. With the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, also known as CORSIA, the UN is looking to offer legitimacy for carbon credits, to help tackle emissions at scale. The scheme has a global footprint, with a roster of 126 markets set to expand to 135 in 2027, but with the US and EU t...

The rise of AI data centers is reshaping the outlook for US power markets. Forecast to account for nearly a 10th of all US electricity demand by 2035, data centers are gobbling up power more quickly than electric vehicles, hydrogen or any other demand class this decade. A profound concentration of capital has allowed for this rapid expansion, which is now exerting influence over energy infrastructure and planning investment. But wh...

Clean energy investment in the US grew $50 billion last year. With interest rates easing and inflation in decline, the market appears to be well positioned to meet skyrocketing power demand from sources like artificial intelligence and data centers. Yet it’s not all smooth sailing: price cannibalization, curtailment risks, tariffs and clean energy policy shifts from the new Trump administration all present challenges for inve...

One hundred days of the second Trump presidency have passed, and the impact has already been significant. While running for president, Donald Trump put the Inflation Reduction Act, ESG investing and clean energy policy in his crosshairs, only to have been held up once in office by courts, members of Congress and some states. The “Liberation Day” tariffs created turmoil on global markets, and his administration has again...

Oil demand growth outlooks have taken a heavy hit in recent weeks. In the wake of the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, US business and consumer sentiment tanked and global GDP expectations were trimmed, with knock-on effects for oil demand. On the other side of the globe, China’s demand for gasoline is falling fast, with domestic policy stimulating an already-buoyant electric veh...

Brazil, the host nation of this year’s COP30, looks set to be at the center of most major carbon market developments in 2025. The country is working hard to develop its domestic carbon market, and could quickly leapfrog others in terms of scale and impact, with the ramping up of its nature-based carbon supply for international trading. At the 2025 BloombergNEF Forum Sao Paulo, Kyle Harrison, BNEF’s Head of Environmental...

The European Union’s battery manufacturing sector has been struggling to stay competitive. In the face of supply chain concerns, technological barriers and record-low prices fueled by the global oversupply of battery packs, existing policy has proved too light to support local producers. Yet with the introduction of the EU’s new Action Plan, further policy support could be on its way, and Chinese battery giants are anno...

The EU has taken an ax to its sustainable reporting regulations. While the bloc is widely considered the global leader for sustainable finance policy, this rollback could limit investors’ access to climate data and their ability to push capital towards the energy transition. With the ramping up of anti-ESG laws in the US, fears over competitiveness lie behind the softening of these EU policies. Yet just as these regions are w...

Southeast Asia is an up-and-coming player in the energy transition. As the region’s production capacity has grown, so have its exports of key clean-power technologies. Within Southeast Asia, favorable policy has encouraged the growth of cheap renewable energy and electric vehicle adoption. Yet recent US tariffs and aid cuts have had an impact. Just how damaging have they been, and can better regional cooperation help mitigate...

We live on an increasingly thirsty planet. Growing populations and rising demand from industry, data centers and farming have led to water stress across the globe. Even under a scenario where global warming is limited to 2C, some three billion people are projected to live in areas where water demand exceeds supply by the middle of the century. Energy-intensive desalination plants offer a solution, but what other opportunities lie i...

The cost of producing clean power has never been lower. Improving financial conditions and oversupply of key equipment drove costs to record lows in 2024. Yet while the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) declined as a global average, different regions and technologies fell at different rates, and one key technology proved to be an outlier. On this episode, Dana Perkins is joined by Amar Vasdev, a senior associate from BNEF’...

Energy-hungry data centers are on the rise. Power demand driven by artificial intelligence has been met by an increase in power purchase agreements (PPAs) for low-carbon energy. Meanwhile, DeepSeek has reduced demand through more efficient computations. So what is driving decision making at tech companies that work in the AI and data center space? At the 2025 BloombergNEF Summit San Francisco, Mark Daly, BNEF’s head of techno...

Annual investment in the energy transition has surpassed $2 trillion for the first time. Investors placed bets on renewable energy, power grids and energy storage, while buzzy emerging technologies fell out of favor. On this episode, Dana Perkins is joined by Meredith Annex, BNEF’s head of clean power, to discuss the report ‘Energy Transition Investment Trends 2025.’

Complementary BNEF research on the trends driv...

Little connects the natural world to our lives more tangibly than the weather. Weather impacts everything from food to energy production, and shifting weather patterns have the power to shift the economy. From wind droughts to heatwaves, utilities and commodities traders are seeking a better understanding of how enhanced weather modeling could help them predict the future. On today’s show, Dana Perkins is joined by BNEF weath...