New York City’s plan to stop e-bike battery fires

Walk just a few blocks in New York City and you’ll likely spot an electric bike zipping by.

The vehicles have become increasingly popular in recent years, especially among delivery drivers, tens of thousands of whom weave through New York streets. But the e-bike influx has caused a wave of fires sparked by their batteries, some of them deadly.

Now, the city wants to fight those fires with battery swapping. A pilot program will provide a small number of delivery drivers with alternative options to power up their e-bikes, including swapping stations that supply fully charged batteries on demand. 

Proponents say the program could lay the groundwork for a new mode of powering small electric vehicles in the city, one that’s convenient and could reduce the risk of fires. But the road to fire safety will likely be long and winding given the sheer number of batteries we’re integrating into our daily lives, in e-bikes and beyond.

A swapping solution

The number of fires caused by batteries in New York City increased nearly ninefold between 2019 and 2023, according to reporting from The City. Concern over fires has been steadily growing, and in March 2023 Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan to address the problem that included regulations for e-bikes and their batteries, crackdowns on unsafe charging practices, and outreach for delivery drivers.

While batteries can catch fire for a variety of reasons, many incidents appear to have been caused by e-bike drivers charging their batteries in apartment buildings, including a February blaze that killed one person and injured 22.

The city’s most recent effort, designed to address charging, is a pilot program for delivery drivers who use e-bikes. For six months, 100 drivers will be matched with one of three startups that will provide a charging solution that doesn’t involve plugging in batteries in apartment buildings.

One of the startups, Swiftmile, is building fast charging stations that look like bike racks and can charge an e-bike battery within two hours. The other two participating companies, Popwheels and Swobbee, are proposing a different, even quicker solution: battery swapping. Instead of plugging in a battery and waiting for it to power up, a rider can swap out a dead battery for a fresh one.

Battery swapping is already being used for some electric vehicles, largely across Asia. Chinese automaker Nio operates a network of battery swapping stations that can equip a car with a fresh battery in just under three minutes. Gogoro, one of MIT Technology Review’s 2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, has a network of battery swapping stations for electric scooters that can accommodate more than 400,000 swaps each day.

The concept will need to be adjusted for New York and for delivery drivers, says Baruch Herzfeld, co-founder and CEO of Popwheels. “But if we get it right,” he says, “we think everybody in New York will be able to use light electric vehicles.”

Existing battery swap networks like Nio’s have mostly included a single company’s equipment, giving the manufacturer control over the vehicle, battery, and swapping equipment. That’s because one of the keys to making battery swapping work is fleet commonality—a base of many vehicles that can all use the same system.

Fortunately, delivery drivers have formed something of a de facto fleet in New York City, says David Hammer, co-founder and president of Popwheels. Roughly half of the city’s 60,000-plus delivery workers rely on e-bikes, according to city estimates. Many of them use bikes from a brand called Arrow, which include removable batteries.

Convenience is key for delivery drivers working on tight schedules. “For a lot of people, battery charging, battery swapping, it’s just technology. But for [delivery workers], it’s their livelihood,” says Irene Figueroa-Ortiz, a policy advisor at the NYC Department of Transportation.

For the New York pilot, Popwheels is building battery cabinets in several locations throughout the city that will include 16 charging slots for e-bike batteries. Riders will open a cabinet door using a smartphone app, plug in the used battery and take a fresh one from another slot. Based on the company’s modeling, each cabinet should be able to support constant use by 40 to 50 riders, Hammer says.

“Maybe it leads to an even larger vision of battery swapping as a part of an urban future,” Hammer says. “But for now, it’s solving a very real and immediate problem that delivery workers have around how they can work a full day, and earn a reasonable living, and do it without having to put their lives at risk for battery fires.”

A growing problem

Lithium-ion batteries power products from laptops and cellphones to electric vehicles, including cars, trucks, and e-bikes. A major benefit of the battery chemistry is its energy density, or ability to pack a lot of energy into a small container. But all that stored energy can also be dangerous.

Batteries can catch fire during charging or use, and even while being stored. Generally, fires happen when temperatures around the battery rise to unsafe levels or if a physical problem in a battery causes a short circuit, allowing current to flow unchecked. These factors can set in motion a dangerous process called thermal runaway.

Most batteries include a battery management system to control charging, which prevents temperatures from spiking and sparking a fire. But if this system malfunctions or if a battery doesn’t include one, charging can lead to fires, says Ben Hoff, who leads fire safety engineering and hardware design at Popwheels.

Some of the delivery drivers who attended a sign-up event for New York’s charging pilot program in late February cited safety as a reason they were looking for alternative solutions for their batteries. “Of course, I worry about that,” Jose Sarmiento, a longtime delivery worker, said at the event. “Even when I’m sleeping, I’m thinking about the battery.”  

Battery swapping could also be a key to safer electric transit, Popwheels’ Hammer says. The company has tight control over the batteries it provides drivers, and its monitoring systems include temperature sensors installed in the charging cabinets. Charging can be shut down immediately if a battery starts to overheat, and an aerosol fire suppression system can slow a fire if one does happen to start inside a cabinet.

The batteries Popwheels provides are also UL-certified, meaning they’re required to pass third-party safety tests. New York City banned the sale of uncertified batteries and e-bikes last year, but many drivers still use them, Hammer says.

Low-quality batteries are more likely to cause fires, a problem that can often be traced to the manufacturing process, says Michael Pecht, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies the reliability and safety of electronic devices.

Battery manufacturing facilities should be as clean as a medical operating room or a semiconductor facility, Pecht explains. Contamination from dust and dirt that wind up in batteries can create problems over time as charging and discharging a battery causes small physical changes. After enough charging cycles, even a tiny dust particle can lead to a short circuit that sparks a fire.

Low-quality manufacturing makes battery fires more likely, but it’s a daunting task to keep tight control over the huge number of cells being made each year. Large manufacturers can produce billions of batteries annually, making the solution to battery fires a complex one, Pecht says: “I think there’s a group who want an easy answer. To me, the answer is not that easy.”

New programs that provide well-manufactured batteries and tightly control charging could make a dent in safety concerns. But real progress will require quick and dramatic scale-up, alongside regulations and continual outreach to communities. 

Popwheels would need to install hundreds of its battery swapping cabinets to support a significant fraction of the city’s delivery drivers. The pilot will help determine whether riders are willing to use new methods of powering their livelihood. As Hammer says, “If they don’t use it, it doesn’t matter.”

Why methane emissions are still a mystery

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

If you follow papers in climate and energy for long enough, you’re bound to recognize some patterns. 

There are a few things I’ll basically always see when I’m sifting through the latest climate and energy research: one study finding that perovskite solar cells are getting even more efficient; another showing that climate change is damaging an ecosystem in some strange and unexpected way. And there’s always some new paper finding that we’re still underestimating methane emissions. 

That last one is what I’ve been thinking about this week, as I’ve been reporting on a new survey of methane leaks from oil and gas operations in the US. (Yes, there are more emissions than we thought there were—get the details in my story here.) But what I find even more interesting than the consistent underestimation of methane is why this gas is so tricky to track down. 

Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and it’s responsible for around 30% of global warming so far. The good news is that methane breaks down quickly in the atmosphere. The bad news is that while it’s floating around, it’s a super-powerful greenhouse gas, way more potent than carbon dioxide. (Just how much more potent is a complicated question that depends on what time scale you’re talking about—read more in this Q&A.)

The problem is, it’s difficult to figure out where all this methane is coming from. We can measure the total concentration in the atmosphere, but there are methane emissions from human activities, there are natural methane sources, and there are ecosystems that soak up a portion of all those emissions (these are called methane sinks). 

Narrowing down specific sources can be a challenge, especially in the oil and gas industry, which is responsible for a huge range of methane leaks. Some are small and come from old equipment in remote areas. Other sources are larger, spewing huge amounts of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere but only for short times. 

A lot of stories about tracking methane have been in the news recently, mostly because of a methane-hunting satellite launched earlier this month. It’s designed to track down methane using tools called spectrometers, which measure how light is reflected and absorbed. 

This is just one of a growing number of satellites that are keeping an eye on the planet for methane emissions. Some take a wide view, spotting which regions have high emissions. Other satellites are hunting for specific sources and can see within a few dozen meters where a leak is coming from. (If you want to read more about why there are so many methane satellites, I recommend this story from Emily Pontecorvo at Heatmap.)

But methane tracking isn’t just a space game. In a new study published in Nature, researchers used nearly a million measurements taken from airplanes flown over oil- and gas-producing regions to estimate total emissions. 

The results are pretty staggering: researchers found that, on average, roughly 3% of oil and gas production at the sites they examined winds up as methane emissions. That’s about three times the official government estimates used by the US Environmental Protection Agency. 

I spoke with one of the authors of the study, Evan Sherwin, who completed the research as a postdoc at Stanford. He compared the challenge of understanding methane leaks to the parable of the blind men and the elephant: there are many pieces of the puzzle (satellites, planes, ground-based detection), and getting the complete story requires fitting them all together. 

“I think we’re really starting to see an elephant,” Sherwin told me. 

That picture will continue to get clearer as MethaneSAT and other surveillance satellites come online and researchers get to sift through the data. And that understanding will be crucial as governments around the world race to keep promises about slashing methane emissions. 


Now read the rest of The Spark

Related reading

For more on how researchers are working to understand methane emissions, give my latest story a read

If you’ve missed the news on methane-hunting satellites, check out this story about MethaneSAT from last month

Pulling methane out of the atmosphere could be a major boost for climate action. Some startups hope that spraying iron particles above the ocean could help, as my colleague James Temple wrote in December

five planes flying out of white puffy clouds at different angles across a blue sky, leaving contrails behind

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION | GETTY IMAGES

Another thing

Making minor changes to airplane routes could put a significant dent in emissions, and a new study found that these changes could be cheap to implement. 

The key is contrails, thin clouds that planes produce when they fly. Minimizing contrails means less warming, and changing flight paths can reduce the amount of contrail formation. Read more about how in the latest from my colleague James Temple

Keeping up with climate  

New rules from the US Securities and Exchange Commission were watered down, cutting off the best chance we’ve had at forcing companies to reckon with the dangers of climate change, as Dara O’Rourke writes in a new opinion piece. (MIT Technology Review)

Yes, heat pumps slash emissions, even if they’re hooked up to a pretty dirty grid. Switching to a heat pump is better than heating with fossil fuels basically everywhere in the US. (Canary Media)

Rivian announced its new R2, a small SUV set to go on sale in 2026. The reveal signals a shift to focusing on mass-market vehicles for the brand. (Heatmap)

Toyota has focused on selling hybrid vehicles instead of fully electric ones, and it’s paying off financially. (New York Times)

→ Here’s why I wrote in December 2022 that EVs wouldn’t be fully replacing hybrids anytime soon. (MIT Technology Review)

Some scientists think we should all pay more attention to tiny aquatic plants called azolla. They can fix their own nitrogen and capture a lot of carbon, making them a good candidate for crops and even biofuels. (Wired)

New York is suing the world’s largest meat company. The company has said it’ll produce meat with no emissions by 2040, a claim that is false and misleading, according to the New York attorney general’s office. (Vox)

A massive fire in Texas has destroyed hundreds of homes. Climate change has fueled dry conditions, and power equipment sparked an intense fire that firefighters struggled to contain. (Grist)

→ Many of the homes destroyed in the blaze are uninsured, creating a tough path ahead for recovery. (Texas Tribune)

Methane leaks in the US are worse than we thought

Methane emissions in the US are worse than scientists previously estimated, a new study has found.

The study, published today in Nature, represents one of the most comprehensive surveys yet of methane emissions from US oil- and gas-producing regions. Using measurements taken from planes, the researchers found that emissions from many of the targeted areas were significantly higher than government estimates had found. The undercounting highlights the urgent need for new and better ways of tracking the powerful greenhouse gas.

Methane emissions are responsible for nearly a third of the total warming the planet has experienced so far. While there are natural sources of the greenhouse gas, including wetlands, human activities like agriculture and fossil-fuel production have dumped millions of metric tons of additional methane into the atmosphere. The concentration of methane has more than doubled over the past 200 years. But there are still large uncertainties about where, exactly, emissions are coming from.

Answering these questions is a challenging but crucial first step to cutting emissions and addressing climate change. To do so, researchers are using tools ranging from satellites like the recently launched MethaneSAT to ground and aerial surveys. 

The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that roughly 1% of oil and gas produced winds up leaking into the atmosphere as methane pollution. But survey after survey has suggested that the official numbers underestimate the true extent of the methane problem.  

For the sites examined in the new study, “methane emissions appear to be higher than government estimates, on average,” says Evan Sherwin, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who conducted the analysis as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University.  

The data Sherwin used comes from one of the largest surveys of US fossil-fuel production sites to date. Starting in 2018, Kairos Aerospace and the Carbon Mapper Project mapped six major oil- and gas-producing regions, which together account for about 50% of onshore oil production and about 30% of gas production. Planes flying overhead gathered nearly 1 million measurements of well sites using spectrometers, which can detect methane using specific wavelengths of light. 

Sherwin et al., Nature

Here’s where things get complicated. Methane sources in oil and gas production come in all shapes and sizes. Some small wells slowly leak the gas at a rate of roughly one kilogram of methane an hour. Other sources are significantly bigger, emitting hundreds or even thousands of kilograms per hour, but these leaks may last for only a short period.

The planes used in these surveys detect mostly the largest leaks, above roughly 100 kilograms per hour (though they catch smaller ones sometimes, down to around one-tenth that size, Sherwin says). Combining measurements of these large leak sites with modeling to estimate smaller sources, researchers estimated that the larger leaks account for an outsize proportion of emissions. In many cases, around 1% of well sites can make up over half the total methane emissions, Sherwin says.

But some scientists say that this and other studies are still limited by the measurement tools available. “This is an indication of the current technology limits,” says Ritesh Gautam, a lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Because the researchers used aerial measurements to detect large methane leaks and modeled smaller sources, it’s possible that the study may be overestimating the importance of the larger leaks, Gautam says. He pointed to several other recent studies, which found that smaller wells contribute a larger fraction of methane emissions.

The problem is, it’s basically impossible to use just one instrument to measure all these different methane sources. We’ll need all the measurement technologies available to get a clearer picture, Gautam explains.

Ground-based tools attached to towers can keep constant watch over an area and detect small emissions sources, though they generally can’t survey large regions. Aerial surveys using planes can cover more ground but tend to detect only larger leaks. They also represent a snapshot in time, so they can miss sources that only leak methane for periods.

And then there are the satellites. Earlier this month, Google and EDF launched MethaneSAT, which joined the growing constellation of methane-detecting satellites orbiting the planet. Some of the existing satellites map huge areas, getting detail only on the order of kilometers. Others have much higher resolution, with the ability to pin methane emissions down to within a few dozen meters. 

Satellites will be especially helpful in finding out more about the many countries around the world that haven’t been as closely measured and mapped as the US has, Gautham says. 

Understanding methane emissions is one thing; actually addressing them is another matter. After identifying a leak, companies then need to take actions like patching faulty pipelines or other equipment, or closing up the vents and flares that routinely release methane into the atmosphere. Roughly 40% of methane emissions from oil and gas production have no net cost, since the money saved by not losing the methane is more than enough to cover the cost of the abatement, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency.

Over 100 countries joined the Global Methane Pledge in 2021, taking on a goal of cutting methane emissions 30% from 2020 levels by the end of the decade. New rules for oil and gas producers announced by the Biden administration could help the US meet those targets. Earlier this year, the EPA released details of a proposed methane fee for fossil-fuel companies, to be calculated on the basis of excess methane released into the atmosphere.

While researchers are slowly getting a better picture of methane emissions, addressing them will be a challenge, as Sherwin notes: “There’s a long way to go.”

Emissions hit a record high in 2023. Blame hydropower.

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

Hydropower is a staple of clean energy—the modern version has been around for over a century, and it’s one of the world’s largest sources of renewable electricity.

But last year, weather conditions caused hydropower to fall short in a major way, with generation dropping by a record amount. In fact, the decrease was significant enough to have a measurable effect on global emissions. Total energy-related emissions rose by about 1.1% in 2023, and a shortfall of hydroelectric power accounts for 40% of that rise, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.

Between year-to-year weather variability and climate change, there could be rocky times ahead for hydropower. Here’s what we can expect from the power source and what it might mean for climate goals. 

Drying up

Hydroelectric power plants use moving water to generate electricity. The majority of plants today use dams to hold back water, creating reservoirs. Operators can allow water to flow through the power plant as needed, creating an energy source that can be turned on and off on demand. 

This dispatchability is a godsend for the grid, especially because some renewables, like wind and solar, aren’t quite so easy to control. (If anyone figures out how to send more sunshine my way, please let me know—I could use more of it.) 

But while most hydroelectric plants do have some level of dispatchability, the power source is still reliant on the weather, since rain and snow are generally what fills up reservoirs. That’s been a problem for the past few years, when many regions around the world have faced major droughts. 

The world actually added about 20 gigawatts of hydropower capacity in 2023, but because of weather conditions, the amount of electricity generated from hydropower fell overall.

The shortfall was especially bad in China, with generation falling by 4.9% there. North America also faced droughts that contributed to hydro’s troubles, partly because El Niño brought warmer and drier conditions. Europe was one of the few places where conditions improved in 2023—mostly because 2022 was an even worse year for drought on the continent.

As hydroelectric plants fell short, fossil fuels like coal and natural gas stepped in to fill the gap, contributing to a rise in global emissions. In total, changes in hydropower output had more of an effect on global emissions than the post-pandemic aviation industry’s growth from 2022 to 2023. 

A trickle

Some of the changes in the weather that caused falling hydropower output last year can be chalked up to expected yearly variation. But in a changing climate, a question looms: Is hydropower in trouble?

The effects of climate change on rainfall patterns can be complicated and not entirely clear. But there are a few key mechanisms by which hydropower is likely to be affected, as one 2022 review paper outlined

  • Rising temperatures will mean more droughts, since warmer air sucks up more moisture, causing rivers, soil, and plants to dry out more quickly. 
  • Winters will generally be warmer, meaning less snowpack and ice, which often fills up reservoirs in the early spring in places like the western US. 
  • There’s going to be more variability in precipitation, with periods of more extreme rainfall that can cause flooding (meaning water isn’t stored neatly in reservoirs for later use in a power plant).

What all this will mean for electricity generation depends on the region of the world in question. One global study from 2021 found that around half of countries with hydropower capacity could expect to see a 20% reduction in generation once per decade. Another report focused on China found that in more extreme emissions scenarios, nearly a quarter of power plants in the country could see that level of reduced generation consistently. 

It’s not likely that hydropower will slow to a mere trickle, even during dry years. But the grid of the future will need to be prepared for variations in the weather. Having a wide range of electricity sources and tying them together with transmission infrastructure over wide geographic areas will help keep the grid robust and ready for our changing climate. 

Related reading

Droughts across the western US have been cutting into hydropower for years. Here’s how changing weather could affect climate goals in California.

While adaptation can help people avoid the worst impacts of climate change, there’s a limit to how much adapting can really help, as I found when I traveled to El Paso, Texas, famously called the “drought-proof city.”

Drought is creating new challenges for herders, who have to handle a litany of threats to their animals and way of life. Access to data could be key in helping them navigate a changing world.

road closed blockade

STEPHANIE ARNETT/MITTR | ENVATO

Another thing

Chinese EVs have entered center stage in the ongoing tensions between the US and China. The vehicles could help address climate change, but the Biden administration is wary of allowing them into the market. There are two major motivations: security and the economy. Read more in my colleague Zeyi Yang’s latest newsletter here

Keeping up with climate  

A new satellite that launched this week will be keeping an eye on methane emissions. Tracking leaks of the powerful greenhouse gas could be key in addressing climate change. (New York Times)

→ This isn’t our first attempt at tracking greenhouse gases from space—but here’s how MethaneSAT is different from other methane-detecting satellites. (Heatmap)

Smarter charging of EVs could be essential to the grid of the future, and California is working on a new program to test it out. (Canary Media)

The magnets that power wind turbines nearly always wind up in a landfill. A new program aims to change that by supporting new methods of recycling. (Grist)

→ One company wants to do without the rare earth metals that are used in today’s powerful magnets. (MIT Technology Review)

Data centers burn through water to keep machinery cool. As more of the facilities pop up, in part to support AI tools like ChatGPT, they could stretch water supplies thin in some places. (The Atlantic)

No US state has been more enthusiastic about heat pumps than Maine. While it might seem an unlikely match—the appliances can lose some of their efficiency in the cold—the state is a success story for the technology. (New York Times)

New rules from the US Securities and Exchange Commission would require companies to report their emissions and expected climate risks. The final version is watered down from an earlier proposal, which would have included a wider variety of emissions. (Associated Press)

Trump wants to unravel Biden’s landmark climate law. Here is what’s most at risk.

President Joe Biden’s crowning legislative achievement was enacting the Inflation Reduction Act, easily the nation’s largest investment into addressing the rising dangers of climate change. 

Yet Donald Trump’s advisors and associates have clearly indicated that dismantling the landmark law would sit at the top of the Republican front-runner’s to-do list should he win the presidential election. If he succeeds, it could stall the nation’s shift to cleaner industries and stunt efforts to cut the greenhouse-gas pollution warming the planet. 

The IRA unleashes at least hundreds of billions of dollars in federal subsidies for renewable energy sources, electric vehicles, batteries, heat pumps, and more. It is the “backbone” of the Biden administration’s plan to meet the nation’s commitments under the Paris climate agreement, putting the US on track to cut emissions by as much as 42% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade, according to the Rhodium Group, a research firm. 

But the sprawling federal policy package marks the “biggest defeat” conservatives have suffered during Biden’s tenure, according to Myron Ebell, who led the Environmental Protection Agency transition team during Trump’s administration. And repealing the law has become an obsession among many conservatives, including the authors of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, widely seen as a far-right road map for the early days of a second Trump administration. 

The IRA’s tax credits for EVs and clean power projects appear especially vulnerable, climate policy experts say. Losing those provisions alone could reshape the nation’s emissions trajectory, potentially adding back hundreds of millions of metric tons of climate pollution this decade. 

Moreover, Trump’s wide-ranging pledges to weaken international institutions, inflame global trade wars, and throw open the nation’s resources to fossil-fuel extraction could have compounding effects on any changes to the IRA, potentially undermining economic growth, the broader investment climate, and prospects for emerging green industries.

Farewell to EV tax credits

The IRA leverages government funds to accelerate the energy transition through a combination of direct grants and tax credits, which allow companies or individuals to cut their federal obligations in exchange for buying, installing, investing in, or producing cleaner power and products. It is enacted law, not a federal agency regulation or executive order, which means that any substantial changes would need to be achieved through Congress.

But the tax cuts for individuals pushed through during Trump’s time in office are set to expire next year. If he wins a second term, legislators seeking to extend those cuts could crack up the tax code and excise key components of the IRA, particularly if Republicans retain control of the House and pick up seats in the Senate. Eliminating any of those tax credits could help offset the added cost of restoring those Trump-era benefits.

Numerous policy observers believe that the pair of EV tax credits in the IRA, which together lop $7,500 off the cost of electric cars and trucks, would be one of the top targets. Subsidizing the cost of EVs polls terribly among Republicans, and throughout the primaries, most of the party’s candidates for president have fiercely attacked government support for the vehicles—none more than Trump himself. 

Close up of former President Trump pointing directly at camera while speaking at a campaign event in Iowa
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Iowa.
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

On the campaign trail, he has repeatedly, erroneously referred to the policy as a mandate rather than a subsidy, while geographically tailoring the critique to his audience.

At a December rally in Iowa, the nation’s biggest corn producer, he pledged to cancel “Crooked Joe Biden’s insane, ethanol-killing electric-vehicle mandate on day one.”

And in the battleground state of Michigan in September, he pandered to the fears of autoworkers.

“Crooked Joe is siding with the left-wing crazies who will destroy automobile manufacturing and will destroy the country itself,” Trump said. “The damn things don’t go far enough, and they’re too expensive.”

Other Trump targets

Other IRA components likely to fall into Trump’s crosshairs include tax credits for investing in or operating emissions-free power plants that would come online in 2025 or later, says Josh Freed, who leads the climate and energy program at Third Way, a center-left think tank in Washington, DC.

These so-called technology-neutral credits are intended to replace earlier subsidies dedicated to renewables like solar and wind, encompassing a more expansive suite of energy-producing possibilities like nuclear, bioenergy, or power plants with carbon capture capabilities.

Those latter categories are more likely to have Republican support than, say, solar farms. But any policy primarily designed to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels would likely be a ripe target in a second Trump administration, given the industry’s support for the candidate and his ideological opposition to climate action.

A number of other provisions could also come under attack within the law. Among them:

  • additional measures supporting the growing adoption of EVs, including tax credits for individuals and businesses that install charging infrastructure; 
  • fees on methane emissions from wells, processing plants, and pipelines, when they exceed certain thresholds;
  •  a series of environmental-justice grants and bonus tax credits available for projects that help reduce pollution, provide affordable clean energy, and create jobs in low-income, marginalized areas;
  • a reinstated Superfund excise tax on crude oil and petroleum products, which could raise billions of dollars to fund the cleanup of hazardous-waste sites;
  • and a series of tax credits incentivizing consumers to add solar panels, install heat pumps, and improve the energy efficiency of their homes. 

Pushback

Observers are quick to note, however, that a wholesale repeal of the IRA is unlikely, because—well—it’s working.

By some accounts, the law has helped spur hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment into projects that could create nearly 200,000 jobs—and get this: eight of the 10 congressional districts set to receive the biggest clean-energy investments announced in recent quarters are led by Republicans, according to one analysis (and backed up by others). 

A disproportionate amount of the money is also flowing into low-income areas and “energy communities,” or regions that previously produced fossil fuels, according to data from the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the Rhodium Group. 

As more and more renewables projects, mineral processing facilities, battery plants, and EV factories bring jobs and tax revenue to red states, the politics around clean energy are shifting, at least behind the scenes if not always in the public debate. 

All of which means some sizable share of Republicans will likely push back on more sweeping changes to the IRA, particularly if they would raise the costs on businesses and reduce the odds that new projects will move forward, says Sasha Mackler, executive director of the energy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, DC, think tank.

“Most of the tax credits are pretty popular within industry and in red states, which are generally the constituency that the Republican Party listens to when they shape their policies,” Mackler says. “When you start to go beyond the top-line political rhetoric and look at the actual tax credits themselves, they’re on much firmer ground than you might initially think just reading the newspaper and looking at what’s being said on the campaign trail.”

That means it might prove more difficult to rescind some of the hit-list items above than Trump would hope. And there are other big parts of the legislative package that Republicans might avoid picking fights over at all, such as the support for processing critical minerals, manufacturing batteries, capturing and storing carbon dioxide, and producing biofuels, given the broader support for these areas.

DC sources also say that clean-energy-focused policy shops and some climate tech companies themselves are already playing defense, stressing the importance of these policies to legislators in the run-up to the election. Meanwhile, if staffers at the Department of Energy and other federal agencies aren’t already rushing to get as much of the grant-based money in the IRA out the door as possible, they should be, says Leah Stokes, an associate professor of environmental politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who advised Democrats on crafting the law.

Among other funds, the law appropriates nearly $12 billion for the DOE’s loans office, which provides financing to accelerate the development of clean-energy projects. It also sets aside $5 billion in EPA grants designed to help states, local governments, and tribes implement efforts to cut greenhouse-gas pollution. 

“If DOE and EPA work fast enough, that money should be difficult to somehow claw back, because it will have been spent,” Stokes says.

Impact

Still, there’s no question that Trump and legislators eager to curry his favor could do real damage to the IRA and the clean-energy industries poised to benefit from it.

How much damage depends, of course, on what he succeeds in unraveling.

But take the example of the power sector subsidies. A study last year in the journal Science noted that with the IRA’s support for clean electricity, around 68% of the country’s power generation would come from low-emission sources by 2030, as opposed to 54% without the law. 

The Rhodium Group estimates that the IRA could cut power-sector pollution by nearly 500 million tons in 2030, as a central estimate. 

At an intersection, exhaust pours out of the tailpipes of vehicles.

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How much these projections change would depend on which and how many of the provisions supporting the shift to cleaner power legislators manage to remove. In addition to the technology-neutral credits noted above, the IRA also provides federal support for extending the life of nuclear plants, deploying energy storage, and adding carbon capture and storage capabilities.

Meanwhile, an earlier report from RMI (formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Institute) offered a hint at what’s at stake for the EV sector. The research group noted that the assorted provisions within the IRA, when combined with the EPA’s proposal to tighten tailpipe rules, could propel electric passenger vehicles to 76% of all new sales by 2030. Without it, they will only make up about half such sales by that point. (Notably, however, the Biden administration is now reportedly considering relaxing those rules to give automakers more time to ramp up EV production.)

All told, some 37 million additional EVs could hit the nation’s roads between now and 2032, eliminating more than 830 million tons of transportation emissions by that year and 2.4 billion tons by 2040, RMI estimates.

That adds up to a huge difference in the market prospects for EV makers, and in the economics of building new plants. 

The loss of the EV credits could create another notable ripple effect. For a purchased vehicle to qualify for one of the $3,750 tax credits, at least 60% of the battery components must be manufactured or assembled in North America. The other credit is available only if the batteries include a significant share of critical minerals extracted or processed in the US or through free-trade partners, or recycled in North America.  

The varied goals of these “domestic content requirements,” which helped drive the law past the legislative finish line, included ensuring that the US produces more of materials and components for cleantech industries domestically, creating more jobs, reducing the nation’s reliance on China, and safeguarding US energy security as the country moves away from fossil fuels.

Losing the tax credits could dim hopes for reaching those goals—though some critics argue that trade deals and IRS interpretations have already watered down the credits’ provisions, ensuring that more manufacturers and models qualify.

Trump’s broader agenda

Trump has made clear he intends to hamstring additional climate efforts and bolster the oil and gas sector through numerous other means, potentially including federal regulations, executive orders, and Department of Justice actions. All of these would only magnify any impact from changes he might make to the IRA.

If he wins in November, he’s also likely, for instance, to direct the EPA to eliminate those tailpipe rules altogether. He may work to slow down, cut off, or claw back some of the $7.5 billion allocated under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build out a national EV charging network.

Trump could also remove and refuse to replace the staff necessary to implement and oversee programs and funding throughout the DOE, the EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other federal agencies. And he would very likely pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement again. 

How much of this Trump accomplishes could depend, in part, on how emboldened he feels upon entering office for a second term, when he’d likely still be battling multiple criminal cases against him. 

“It just depends if we assume he’s going to respect the law and color within the lines of our legal system, or if he’s going to be a fascist,” Stokes says. “That’s a huge question—and we should take it very seriously.”

In the end, it may also prove difficult to disentangle the effects of rolling back climate policies from any success he achieves in implementing his broader policy agenda. Trump has pledged to impose a 60% or higher tariff on Chinese goods, as well as a “pro-America system of universal baseline tariffs on most foreign products.” He has said he would encourage Russia to attack NATO allies and is reportedly considering  pulling the US out of the military alliance. He’s discussed deploying military forces to suppress US protests, seal the southern border, and attack drug cartels in Mexico.

The potentially chaotic economic and geopolitical effects of such policies, at a point of spiraling global conflicts, could easily dwarf any direct consequences of altering climate laws and regulations.

As Freed puts it: “A world that is less stable and much more dangerous, economically and militarily, would have incalculable damage on climate and energy issues in a second Trump term.”

And on much else.

Three frequently asked questions about EVs, answered

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

For someone who does not own or drive a car, I sure do have a lot of thoughts about them.

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about transportation in general, since it’s one of the biggest areas we need to clean up to address climate change: it accounts for something like a quarter of global emissions. And the vehicles that we use to shuttle around to work, school, and the grocery store in many parts of the world are a huge piece of the problem.

Last week, MIT Technology Review hosted an event where my colleagues and I dug into a conversation about the future of batteries and the materials that go into them. We got so many great questions, and we answered quite a few of them (subscribers should check out the recording of the full event here).

But there were still a lot of questions, particularly about EVs, that we didn’t get to, so let’s take a look at a few. (I’ve edited these for length and clarity, but they came from subscribers, so thank you to everyone who submitted!)

Why is there not a bigger push for plug-in hybrids during the transition to full EVs? Could those play a role?

Hybrids are sometimes relegated to the fringes of the EV discussion, but I think they’re absolutely worth talking about. 

Before we get into this, let’s get a couple of terms straight. All hybrid vehicles use both an internal-combustion engine that burns gasoline and a battery, but there are two key types to know about. Plug-in hybrids can be charged up using an EV charger and run for short distances on electricity. Conventional hybrids have a small battery to help recapture energy that would otherwise be wasted, which boosts gas mileage, but they always run on gasoline.

Any technology that helps reduce emissions immediately can help address climate change, and even a conventional hybrid will cut emissions by something like 20%. 

Personally, I think plug-in hybrids in particular are a great option for people who can’t commit to an EV just yet. These vehicles often have a range of around 50 miles on electricity, so if you’re commuting short distances, nearly all your driving can be zero-emissions. 

Plug-ins aren’t the perfect solution, though. For one thing, the vehicles may have higher rates of problems than both EVs and gas-powered vehicles, and they need a bit more maintenance. And some studies have shown that plug-in hybrids don’t tend to get the full emissions benefits advertised, because people use the electric mode less than expected.

Ultimately, we need to stop burning fossil fuels, so we’ll need to get used to vehicles that run without gasoline at all. But in the meantime, dipping a toe into the world of electric vehicles could be a good option for many drivers. 

Will current charging technology be able to support EVs? How practical is it to bring chargers to remote areas of the country?

These questions hit on one of the biggest potential barriers to EV adoption: charging availability. 

In many parts of the world, there’s a massive need to build more chargers to support the EVs already on the road, not to mention all the new ones being built and sold each year. Some agencies have recommended that there should be one public charger for every 10 EVs on the road, though factors like density and rates of at-home charging mean different communities will have different needs. 

The US had about 24 EVs per charger as of the end of 2022, while the EU is at about 13, and China is among the leading nations with around eight. Improving that ratio is crucial to getting more drivers comfortable with EVs. 

But building out the charging network is a big project, and one that looks different for different communities. In dense cities, many people live in apartments as opposed to single-family homes with garages, so even more public chargers will be needed to make up for the lack of at-home charging. For rural communities, or those that are less wealthy, getting any chargers built at all can be a challenge. 

These so-called charging deserts often suffer from a sort of chicken-and-egg problem: there’s a lack of demand for chargers because people aren’t driving EVs, and people aren’t driving EVs because there are no chargers.

Public funding will be key to filling in gaps left by private companies installing charging networks. In the US, some money is tied to making sure that disadvantaged communities will benefit. 

The bottom line is that it’s possible to make chargers available and equitable, but it’s definitely going to take a while, and it’s going to be expensive. 

What about hydrogen—could that be an alternative to batteries?

I’ve been digging into this question, so stay tuned for a story coming very soon. But I’ll give you a sneak peek: the short answer is that I think there are many reasons to be skeptical of claims that hydrogen will swoop in to save the day for vehicles. 

A small number of vehicles on the road today do use hydrogen as a fuel. The Toyota Mirai is one of the most popular fuel-cell models on the market, though only a few thousand were sold last year.

The big draw is that fueling up such a car looks a lot like fueling up a gas-powered vehicle today, taking just a few minutes at a pump. Even the fastest chargers can take around half an hour to juice up an EV, so hydrogen refueling is generally faster and more convenient.

But for a range of reasons, hydrogen vehicles are more expensive both to buy and to drive, and they’re likely to stay that way. There are better uses for hydrogen, too, in heavy industry and fertilizer and even long-range shipping. So EVs are probably going to be our best option for a long while. 

I hope I’ve piqued your interest—look out for a longer story on this topic soon. In the meantime, check out some of our other transportation coverage. 

Related reading

We put electric vehicles on our 2023 list of breakthrough technologies—see why here.

Hybrids are going to be around for a while, and that might be a good thing, as I wrote in a 2022 story.

Huge EVs are far from perfect, but they can be part of the story on addressing climate change.

Aerial view of electric car parking in charging station with solar panels.

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Another thing

The EV revolution is happening faster in China than anywhere else in the world. So it’s no wonder that the country is also a center for the world of virtual power plants, which pull together energy resources like EV batteries. Read more about why China needs VPPs in my colleague Zeyi Yang’s latest story.

Keeping up with climate  

Plastic is really difficult to recycle. A new report shows that some companies knew just how extensive the challenges are and obscured the truth for decades. (The Guardian)

→ Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again. (MIT Technology Review)

The EU is finalizing rules around pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. The certification will favor techniques that work over long time scales and can be measured effectively. (The Verge)

EVs can run into trouble in extreme heat and cold. New materials, especially advancements in a part of the battery called the electrolyte, could help EVs last longer and stand up to tough conditions. (Scientific American)

A growing group of companies wants to enlist the earth to help store energy. Sage Geosystems just raised $17 million for geothermal energy storage. (Canary Media)

→ Fervo Energy demonstrated that its wells can be used like a giant underground battery. (MIT Technology Review)

Restringing power lines could be key in supercharging clean energy. The process can be quicker and cheaper than building new transmission lines, as long as red tape doesn’t get in the way. (Heatmap News)

Farmers are getting better at growing more crops faster on less land. The problem is, the benefits are focused on plants going into cars and cows, not people. (Wired)

Three things to love about batteries

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

I wouldn’t exactly say I have favorites when it comes to climate technologies. Anything that could help us get closer to tackling climate change is worth writing about, both to share the potential upsides and to carefully examine for pitfalls. But I have a special spot in my heart and my reporting notebook for batteries.

After all, what’s not to love? They play a crucial role in climate action, there are a million different kinds that can meet basically any need, and they’re at least a little bit magical. 

In honor of everyone’s favorite Hallmark-ified holiday, I thought I’d share a love letter to batteries. In any case, this should give you some sense of why I keep coming back to this subject. (Most recently, I dove into the topic of an alternative battery chemistry, lithium-sulfur—give that a read if you haven’t!)

So, how do I love batteries? Let me count the ways. 

They’re practical 

Imagine a world that’s on its way to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That would put us on track to limit global warming to less than 2 °C, or 3.6 °F. To get there, the two biggest sectors to clean up are electricity and transportation: how we power the world and get around. And the common denominator is—you guessed it—batteries. 

Some low-emissions power sources, like wind and solar, aren’t consistently available, so they need a little backup. That’s where grid storage comes in—we’ll need to build about 100 times more energy storage by 2050 on the grid to be on track for our net-zero scenario. 

This won’t all be batteries—storing energy with pumped hydro, compressed air, and other methods could be key. But batteries, especially if cheaper alternatives can scale, will be a major piece of the puzzle.

Electrifying transport is a similar story. We need to move from gas guzzlers to zero-emissions vehicles. And batteries are going to help us do it. 

In our net-zero scenario, the world needs about 14 terawatt hours’ worth of batteries for EVs every year by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s something like 90 times greater than production in 2020. 

They’re versatile

One of my favorite things about battery technology is its adaptability. Researchers are finding and developing new chemistries all the time, and it’s fascinating to follow. 

Lithium-ion batteries tend to be the default for the industries I typically write about (think transportation and energy storage). That’s mostly because these batteries were developed for personal devices that became widespread beginning in the 1990s, so they’ve had a head start on scaling and the cost cuts that come along with it. 

Even in existing battery technologies, there’s lots of nuance and innovation. Lithium-ion batteries follow a similar blueprint, but there’s a whole world of flavors. Your phone and laptop probably house pouch cells with higher levels of cobalt, whereas your EV likely runs off cylindrical ones that are high in nickel. And a growing fraction of lithium-ion cells don’t include either of those metals—companies are looking at these options for stationary storage or lower- cost vehicles. 

But don’t stop there. Next-generation batteries could give us a different chemistry for every occasion. Need a robust, low-cost battery? Try sodium-ion. Even cheaper, for stationary storage? Zinc flow batteries or iron-air might be the chemistry for you. Something for a long-range, high performance EV? Check out solid state, or maybe something of the lithium-sulfur variety. 

I’m often asked which battery chemistry is going to “win.” Not all batteries are going to make it to widespread adoption, and not all battery companies are going to succeed. But I think the answer is that we’ll hopefully see not a single dominant type of battery, but an ever-growing menu of options. 

They’re at least a little bit magic

Last but not least, I think that one of the main reasons that I’m obsessed with batteries is that I find them a little bit mystifying. Tiny ions shuttling around in a metal container can store energy for us to use, whenever and wherever we want. 

I’ll never get sick of it, and I hope you won’t either. Here’s to spending more time with the ones we love in the year ahead. 

Related reading

Read more about lithium-sulfur batteries, which could unlock cheaper EVs with longer range, in my latest story. 

For another alternative, check out this story from last year on the sodium-ion batteries that could be closer to hitting the roads.

Form Energy and its iron-air batteries made our 2023 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch. Read all about them here.

I’m not the first MIT Technology Review reporter to dive in on batteries. Read this 2018 story from my colleague James Temple on why lithium-ion batteries won’t be able to clean up the grid on their own. 

Another thing

If you, like me, can’t get enough batteries, I’ve got a great event coming up this week for you! Join me, senior editor James Temple, and editor-at-large David Rotman for the latest in our Roundtables series, where we’ll be diving into a rousing conversation about batteries and their materials. 

This event is open to subscribers, so subscribe if you haven’t yet and come ask all the questions you have about batteries, minerals, and mining! See you there!

a line of heat pumps stretch into the distance with a yellow arrow trending up in front of the closest one

STEPHANIE ARNETT/MITTR | ENVATO

More from us

Sales might be down, but heat pumps are still hot. The devices, which can heat and cool spaces using electricity, are gaining ground on fossil fuels in the US. Check out the data in this story for more on why it matters, and what this says about decarbonization prospects for the country and beyond. 

Also, I’d like to introduce you to a new colleague, James O’Donnell! He’s joining the AI team, and he’s coming out swinging with a story about how Google is using a new satellite to detect methane leaks. Give it a read, and stay tuned for more great stories from him to come. 

Keeping up with climate  

Charging EVs might seem like it’s all about being fast, but slow chargers could be the key to getting more renters to adopt the technology. (Grist)

Chinese automaker BYD has seen massive growth in its EV sales, beating out Tesla in the last quarter of 2023 to become the world’s largest EV maker. Here’s how that happened. (New York Times)

→ BYD is moving so fast that the company is getting into shipping to move more vehicles. (MIT Technology Review)

Consumer demand for EVs is slowing a bit. Some companies are looking to smaller vehicles to help jumpstart interest. (IEEE Spectrum)

Dirt is a major carbon store, holding three times as much as the entire atmosphere. The problem for people looking to leverage dirt for carbon removal is that nobody knows exactly how much carbon can be stored in dirt. (Grist)

Last year was an awful one for the offshore wind industry, but things might be looking up in the year ahead. (Heatmap)

→ Here’s what’s coming next for offshore wind. (MIT Technology Review)

This carbon removal startup is powered by sunlight and seawater. Banyu Carbon’s reversible photoacid could help suck up greenhouse gases from the ocean, though experts have questions about the scalability and ecological effects. (Bloomberg)

How sulfur could be a surprise ingredient in cheaper, better batteries

The key to building less-expensive batteries that could extend the range of EVs might lie in a cheap, abundant material: sulfur.

Addressing climate change is going to require a whole lot of batteries, both to drive an increasingly electric fleet of vehicles and to store renewable power on the grid. Today, lithium-ion batteries are the dominant choice for both industries.

But as the need for more batteries grows, digging up the required materials becomes more challenging. The solution may lie in a growing number of alternatives that avoid some of the most limited and controversial metals needed for lithium-ion batteries, like cobalt and nickel.

One contender chemistry, lithium-sulfur, could soon reach a major milestone, as startup Lyten plans to deliver limited quantities of lithium-sulfur cells to its first customers later this year. The cells (which can be strung together to build batteries of different sizes) will go to customers in the aerospace and defense industries, a step on the journey to building batteries that can stand up to the test of EVs.  

When it comes to new options for batteries, “we need something that we can make a lot of, and make it quickly. And that’s where lithium-sulfur comes in,” says Celina Mikolajczak, chief battery technology officer at Lyten.

Sulfur is widely abundant and inexpensive—a major reason that lithium-sulfur batteries could come with a much cheaper price tag. The cost of materials is around half that of lithium-ion cells, Mikolajczak says. 

That doesn’t mean the cost for the new batteries will immediately be lower, though. Lithium-ion has had decades to slowly cut costs, as production has scaled and companies have worked out the kinks. But a lower cost of materials means the potential for cheaper batteries in the future. 

Not only could lithium-sulfur batteries eventually provide a cheaper way to store energy—they could also beat out lithium-ion on a crucial metric: energy density. A lithium-sulfur battery can pack in nearly twice the energy as a lithium-ion battery of the same weight. That could be a major plus for electric vehicles, allowing automakers to build vehicles that can go farther on a single charge without weighing them down.

However, there are still major technical barriers Lyten needs to overcome for its products to be ready to hit the road in an EV. Chief among them is getting batteries to last.

Today’s lithium-ion batteries built for EVs can last for 800 cycles or more (meaning they can be sapped and recharged 800 times). Lithium-sulfur options tend to degrade much faster, with many efforts today hovering somewhere around 100 cycles, says Shirley Meng, a battery researcher at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory.

That’s because taming the chemical reactions that power lithium-sulfur batteries has proved to be a challenge. Unwanted reactions between lithium and sulfur can sap the life out of batteries and drive them to an early grave.

Lyten is far from the first to go after the promise of lithium-sulfur batteries, with companies big and small making forays into the chemistry for decades. Some, like UK-based Oxis Energy, have shuttered, while others, including Sion Power, have pivoted away from lithium-sulfur.  But growing demand for alternatives, and a higher level of interest and funding, could mean that Lyten succeeds where earlier efforts have failed, Meng says.

Lyten has made progress in stretching the lifetime of its batteries, recently seeing some samples reach as high as 300 cycles, Mickolajczak says. She attributes the success to Lyten’s 3D graphene material, which helps prevent unwanted side reactions and boost the cell’s energy density. The company is also looking to use 3D graphene, a more complicated structure than the two-dimensional variety, in other products like sensors and composites.  

Even with recent progress, Lyten is still far from producing batteries that can last long enough to power an EV. In the meantime, the company plans to bring its cells to market in places where lifetime isn’t quite so important. 

Since lithium-sulfur batteries can be extremely lightweight, the company is working with customers building devices like drones, for which replacing the batteries frequently would be worth the savings on weight, says Keith Norman, Lyten’s chief sustainability officer. 

The company opened a pilot manufacturing line in 2023 with a maximum capacity of 200,000 cells annually. It recently began producing a small number of cells, which are scheduled for delivery to paying customers later this year. 

The company hasn’t publicly shared which companies will receive the first batteries.  Moving forward, two of the company’s main focuses are improving lifetime and scaling production of both 3D graphene and battery cells, Norman says. 

The road to lithium-sulfur batteries that can power EVs is still a long one, but as Mikolajczak points out, today’s staple chemistry, lithium-ion, has improved leaps and bounds on cost, lifetime, and energy density in the years that companies have been working to tweak it. 

People have tried out a massive range of chemistry options in batteries, Mikolajczak says. “To make one of them reality requires that you put in the work.”

How virtual power plants are shaping tomorrow’s energy system

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here.

For more than a century, the prevalent image of power plants has been characterized by towering smokestacks, endless coal trains, and loud spinning turbines. But the plants powering our future will look radically different—in fact, many may not have a physical form at all. Welcome to the era of virtual power plants (VPPs).

The shift from conventional energy sources like coal and gas to variable renewable alternatives such as solar and wind means the decades-old way we operate the energy system is changing. 

Governments and private companies alike are now counting on VPPs’ potential to help keep costs down and stop the grid from becoming overburdened. 

Here’s what you need to know about VPPs—and why they could be the key to helping us bring more clean power and energy storage online.

What are virtual power plants and how do they work?

A virtual power plant is a system of distributed energy resources—like rooftop solar panels, electric vehicle chargers, and smart water heaters—that work together to balance energy supply and demand on a large scale. They are usually run by local utility companies who oversee this balancing act.

A VPP is a way of “stitching together” a portfolio of resources, says Rudy Shankar, director of Lehigh University’s Energy Systems Engineering, that can help the grid respond to high energy demand while reducing the energy system’s carbon footprint.

The “virtual” nature of VPPs comes from its lack of a central physical facility, like a traditional coal or gas plant. By generating electricity and balancing the energy load, the aggregated batteries and solar panels provide many of the functions of conventional power plants.

They also have unique advantages.

Kevin Brehm, a manager at Rocky Mountain Institute who focuses on carbon-free electricity, says comparing VPPs to traditional plants is a “helpful analogy,” but VPPs “do certain things differently and therefore can provide services that traditional power plants can’t.”

One significant difference is VPPs’ ability to shape consumers’ energy use in real time. Unlike conventional power plants, VPPs can communicate with distributed energy resources and allow grid operators to control the demand from end users.

For example, smart thermostats linked to air conditioning units can adjust home temperatures and manage how much electricity the units consume. On hot summer days these thermostats can pre-cool homes before peak hours, when air conditioning usage surges. Staggering cooling times can help prevent abrupt demand hikes that might overwhelm the grid and cause outages. Similarly, electric vehicle chargers can adapt to the grid’s requirements by either supplying or utilizing electricity. 

These distributed energy sources connect to the grid through communication technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular services. In aggregate, adding VPPs can increase overall system resilience. By coordinating hundreds of thousands of devices, VPPs have a meaningful impact on the grid—they shape demand, supply power, and keep the electricity flowing reliably.

How popular are VPPs now?

Until recently, VPPs were mostly used to control consumer energy use. But because solar and battery technology has evolved, utilities can now use them to supply electricity back to the grid when needed.

In the United States, the Department of Energy estimates VPP capacity at around 30 to 60 gigawatts. This represents about 4% to 8% of peak electricity demand nationwide, a minor fraction within the overall system. However, some states and utility companies are moving quickly to add more VPPs to their grids.

Green Mountain Power, Vermont’s largest utility company, made headlines last year when it expanded its subsidized home battery program. Customers have the option to lease a Tesla home battery at a discounted rate or purchase their own, receiving assistance of up to $10,500, if they agree to share stored energy with the utility as required. The Vermont Public Utility Commission, which approved the program, said it can also provide emergency power during outages.

In Massachusetts, three utility companies (National Grid, Eversource, and Cape Light Compact) have implemented a VPP program that pays customers in exchange for utility control of their home batteries.

Meanwhile, in Colorado efforts are underway to launch the state’s first VPP system. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission is urging Xcel Energy, its largest utility company, to develop a fully operational VPP pilot by this summer.

Why are VPPs important for the clean energy transition?

Grid operators must meet the annual or daily “peak load,” the moment of highest electricity demand. To do that, they often resort to using gas “peaker” plants, ones that remain dormant most of the year that they can switch during in times of high demand. VPPs will reduce the grids’ reliance on these plants.

The Department of Energy currently aims to expand national VPP capacity to 80 to 160 GW by 2030. That’s roughly equivalent to 80 to 160 fossil fuel plants that need not be built, says Brehm.

Many utilities say VPPs can lower energy bills for consumers in addition to reducing emissions. Research suggests that leveraging distributed sources during peak demand is up to 60% more cost effective than relying on gas plants.

Another significant, if less tangible, advantage of VPPs is that they encourage people to be more involved in the energy system. Usually, customers merely receive electricity. Within a VPP system, they both consume power and contribute it back to the grid. This dual role can improve their understanding of the grid and get them more invested in the transition to clean energy.

What’s next for VPPs?

The capacity of distributed energy sources is expanding rapidly, according to the Department of Energy, owing to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles, charging stations, and smart home devices. Connecting these to VPP systems enhances the grid’s ability to balance electricity demand and supply in real time. Better AI can also help VPPs become more adept at coordinating diverse assets, says Shankar.

Regulators are also coming on board. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has started holding panels and workshops to educate its members about VPPs and how to implement them in their states. The California Energy Commission is set to fund research exploring the benefits of integrating VPPs into its grid system. This kind of interest from regulators is new but promising, says Brehm.

Still, hurdles remain. Enrolling in a VPP can be confusing for consumers because the process varies among states and companies. Simplifying it for people will help utility companies make the most of distributed energy resources such as EVs and heat pumps. Standardizing the deployment of VPPs can also speed up their growth nationally by making it easier to replicate successful projects across regions.

“It really comes down to policy,” says Brehm. “The technology is in place. We are continuing to learn about how to best implement these solutions and how to interface with consumers.”

How new magnets could accelerate climate action

The motor in your vacuum cleaner and the one in your electric vehicle likely have at least one thing in common: they both rely on powerful permanent magnets to function. And the materials for those magnets could soon be in short supply. 

Permanent magnets can maintain a magnetic field on their own without an electric charge. They’re commonly used in motors, making them spin when an electric field is applied. The permanent magnets used in high-end motors today are built using a class of materials called rare earth metals. Demand for these materials is expected to skyrocket in the coming decades, fueled in particular by the growth of electric vehicles and wind turbines. As mines and processing facilities struggle to keep up, supplies may stretch thin.

One Minnesota startup has been working to address this looming shortage. Niron Magnetics is building a large-scale manufacturing facility to produce iron nitride, a magnetic material derived from common elements, while also working to improve the material’s properties so that it can be used in stronger magnets to power more products. The results may help address yet another coming supply crunch that threatens to slow down action on climate change.

A growing gap

The permanent magnets you’re probably most familiar with are the cheap ones made from materials called ferrites that are holding up postcards and wedding announcements on your refrigerator.

But many of the devices sprinkled through our daily lives, like our vacuums and EVs, require much higher-powered magnets. Motors that generate motion using permanent magnets tend to be more powerful and efficient, so rare earth metals, such as neodymium and dysprosium, have become vital for a wide range of devices. In a wind turbine, for instance, magnets in the generator harness motion from the blades and turn it into electricity.  

Like many of the other materials needed for clean energy technologies, we can expect a meteoric rise in demand for rare earth metals used in magnets as the world rushes to address climate change.

In the case of neodymium and dysprosium, supply will need to increase sevenfold by 2050 just to meet demand for wind turbines, says Seaver Wang, co-director of the climate and energy team at the Breakthrough Institute, an environment and policy think tank.

In addition, rare earth metal demand for electric vehicles could increase 15-fold from today’s levels by 2040, according to an analysis from the International Energy Agency. And it’s not just clean energy technologies—increased access to electricity and cheap electronics means demand for rare earth metals will rise across other sectors, too. 

The world is unlikely to exhaust the geological reserves of rare earth metals anytime soon, Breakthrough’s Wang says—rare earth metals aren’t actually all that rare, at least when it comes to the entire planet’s supply. But they don’t tend to be very concentrated even in the places they are found, so scaling the supply of rare earth metals quickly and economically enough will be a major challenge.

In the near term, global demand for magnets made with neodymium could triple by 2035, while production will likely only double by then, given the long lead times required to build new mines, according to materials research firm Adamas Intelligence.

Given the growing demand, “the world needs a different solution and technology,” says Jonathan Rowntree, CEO of Niron Magnetics.

Few alternatives to permanent magnets exist today. Recycling can help reduce the need for future rare earth mining and processing, but there won’t be enough used material to meet the growing demand for decades.

Tesla announced in 2023 that it would move away from rare earth metals in its motors in the future, though the company hasn’t shared details about how it will do so. Some experts have speculated that it plans to use lower-powered ferrite materials, which would add bulk and weight to the motor. 

Rowntree and his colleagues see iron nitride as part of the solution to the anticipated problem of constraints in the supply of rare earth metals. Iron nitride magnets don’t use those metals, and they don’t require cobalt, another metal sometimes used in magnets (and in lithium-ion batteries) that’s under growing scrutiny because of the environmental and humanitarian issues often associated with its mining. And some experts say these iron-based materials might end up creating magnets just as strong as those that include rare earth metals. 

An attractive alternative

Though iron nitride (specifically, a phase called alpha double prime) was discovered in the 1950s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that researchers discovered its strong magnetic properties, says Jian-Ping Wang, a professor at the University of Minnesota and the technical founder and chief scientist at Niron Magnetics.

Even then, scientists couldn’t explain the physics underlying the material’s magnetic properties, and they struggled to recreate magnetic samples reliably through the 1990s. Intrigued by this problem, Wang began work on iron nitride materials at the university in 2002.

After making hundreds of samples and working for nearly a decade, Wang cracked the code to reliably make iron nitride materials in thin films. He presented his findings at a major conference in 2010, the same year geopolitical tensions between Japan and China sparked a huge increase in the price of rare earth metals.

Suddenly, there was a greater appetite for alternatives to rare earths that could be used to make strong permanent magnets. The US Department of Energy’s ARPA-E office sponsored grants to develop such materials, awarding one to Wang and the research that would eventually become Niron Magnetics.

Rare earth metals became ubiquitous across technologies because they represented “a huge jump” in the energy density of magnets when they were discovered in the 1960s, says Matthew Kramer, a senior scientist at Ames National Laboratory.

One of the primary gauges of a magnet’s properties is its energy density, measured in mega-gauss-oersteds (MGOe). While the ferrite magnets on your fridge likely have an MGOe of around 5, neodymium-based magnets are much stronger, reaching around 50 MGOe.

Rare earth metals like neodymium are currently a crucial ingredient in permanent magnets because they can wrangle other metals into an arrangement that helps generate a strong magnetic field.

Permanent magnets produce magnetic fields because of spinning electrons, small charged particles in atoms. Different elements have different numbers of free electrons that in some circumstances can be made to spin in the same direction, generating a magnetic field. The more electrons that are free and spinning in the same direction, the stronger the magnetic field.

Iron has a lot of free electrons, but without an overarching structure they tend to spin in different directions, canceling each other out. Adding in neodymium, dysprosium, and other rare earth metals can help arrange iron atoms in a way that allows their electrons to work together, resulting in powerful magnets.

Iron nitride does what few other materials can: it arranges iron into a structure that gets electrons spinning together in this way and keeps them aligned—no rare earth metals required.

“If you could get the nitrogen to spread these irons out in the appropriate way, you should be able to potentially get a really, really good permanent magnet,” Kramer says. That has proven to be a challenge though, he adds, because it’s difficult to make these materials in bulk and to harness the complex chemistry in a way that forces them to retain their magnetization. 

Idea to execution

After Wang was able to reliably create thin films of iron nitride, the next step was to figure out how to make it in bulk, grind it up, and squish it together to make magnets.

Finding a manufacturing process was a challenge in part because iron nitride degrades at high temperatures, which limits the options available in traditional magnet manufacturing, Wang explains. He developed several methods to make iron nitride in bulk, one of the most promising of which involves diffusing nitrogen through iron oxide (rust is a type of iron oxide) under very specific conditions.

In recent years, Niron has focused on perfecting and scaling up the manufacturing process, Rowntree says. A significant remaining challenge is determining how to help iron nitride reach its full potential.

A small metal disc sits on a green background

NIRON MAGNETICS

In theory, iron nitride should be able to produce magnets that are even stronger than neodymium ones. But today, Niron’s magnets can only reach around 10 MGOe, Rowntree says. That’s sufficient for devices like speakers, which the company is exploring as an early product. It displayed small speakers made with Niron magnets at CES in January.

With higher magnet strength, iron nitride magnets will be more useful in devices like electric vehicles and wind turbines. In theory, the material should be able to reach 20 to 30 MGOe using Niron’s current manufacturing method, Wang says, though achieving that will require “a lot of optimization.” The theoretical ceiling is much higher, with iron nitride potentially being able to form magnets stronger than the neodymium ones used today.

Niron recently received over $30 million from investors, including GM Ventures and Stellantis Ventures, for a total of more than $100 million in funding. The company is working to scale up production capacity in its current pilot plant, with the aim of reaching 1,000 kilograms of production capacity by the end of 2024. 

Niron’s work, along with other alternatives and workarounds, could be crucial in loosening a major potential bottleneck for several critical climate technologies. 

“Increased magnets and increased magnet supply are critical to enabling the energy transition,” says Gregg Cremer, an advisor at ARPA-E. “Without more magnets, we’re just not going to be able to meet our objectives.”