Saturday, 12 September 2026

US module buyers had penciled in a price impact of roughly $0.03/W to $0.05/W from the Section 232 decision on polysilicon and its derivatives, treating $0.06/W to $0.07/W as the upper end of plausible outcomes, according to pv magazine.

The August 6 announcement set tariffs and minimum import prices on polysilicon and its derivatives. Jesse Pichel and Lev Seleznov of Roth Capital Partners assessed what the decision is expected to mean for US module pricing and for investment in domestic manufacturing, pv magazine reported.

A federal appeals court struck down the Trump administration's use of emergency powers to force the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in Michigan to keep running, finding that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) exceeded its authority, Inside Climate News reported.

Consumers Energy, which owns the plant, had planned to close it in May 2025 after years of preparing to replace the output with less-expensive alternatives, according to Inside Climate News.

The Campbell plant, at West Olive, Michigan, has a summer generating capacity of 1,331 MW, and the oldest of its three generating units came online in 1962, per Inside Climate News.

The Sierra Club calculated that running the plants past their retirement dates has cost consumers more than USD 540 million so far, with Campbell responsible for about half of that total.

A DOE spokesperson said the Campbell plant ran at more than 650 MW every day between Jan. 21 and Feb. 1 during Winter Storm Fern.

Hours after the ruling, Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued another 90-day emergency order covering a coal plant in Washington state, Inside Climate News reported.

Iran wants the Strait of Hormuz kept under its own authority, and officials in Tehran have spent weeks working through an arrangement with Oman on how maritime traffic would be handled, World Oil reported.

Normal shipping through the waterway, a chokepoint for crude and liquefied natural gas cargoes, has been halted since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran started in late February, according to World Oil.

Some movement has continued. Over the past two months, a portion of vessels have gone through the strait again, mostly after dark and escorted by the U.S. military, World Oil reported.

Brent crude fell more than 3% on Friday, World Oil reported, after the International Energy Agency (IEA) flagged a worsening demand outlook. The benchmark changed hands at roughly USD 104 per barrel following the IEA warning.

R3 Lithium has begun producing lithium carbonate from recycled battery material at a plant in Covington, in the US state of Georgia, according to electrive.

The site is designed for 2,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year, electrive reported. Shredding lines at the same location carry an annual capacity of 30,000 tonnes, turning production scrap and end-of-life batteries into black mass, according to the same report.

The company took over the roughly 14,300 square metre building in July 2026, electrive reported.

R3 will put USD 15 million from a Series A financing round into upgrading the plant for continuous commercial operation, according to electrive.

Carbon Brief has factchecked 45 false or misleading claims about climate change, renewables and net-zero made by the leadership of Reform UK, grouping them by topic.

The party, led by Nigel Farage, has been pushing anti-net-zero policies in the UK.

Richard Tice, Reform's energy spokesperson, has said that a Reform national government would scrap the UK's net-zero target, back fossil-fuel expansion and tear up existing contracts for renewable energy, according to Carbon Brief.

On the underlying science, Carbon Brief states that global temperatures are currently around 1.4C hotter than at the start of the industrial era in 1850-1900.

The European Commission has put forward a proposal to modernise and simplify EU procurement law that would make it easier to shut non-EU companies out of public tenders, electrive reported.

Presenting the plans, EU Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné pointed to BYD electric buses as an illustration. "After the adoption of this reform, it won't be because of the European commissioner if there are BYD buses in Berlin," Séjourné said, according to electrive.

The text is still a draft and needs the backing of the EU Parliament and member states before it can take effect.

The example cuts against the production geography. BYD's electric buses for the European market have been built since 2017 at the company's plant in Komárom, in EU member state Hungary, electrive reported. The roughly 200 electric intercity buses Deutsche Bahn ordered from BYD at the end of 2025 are also slated for manufacture in Hungary.

That order was largely won elsewhere. BYD took only 5 per cent of the contract volume, with the lion's share going to German manufacturer MAN, according to electrive.

Jon Rosenthal, a Democratic state representative from Houston, is running against Republican Bo French for a seat on the Railroad Commission of Texas, the body that regulates oil and gas in the state, Inside Climate News reported. The general election to fill the seat held by Jim Wright is set for Nov. 3, according to Inside Climate News.

Rosenthal spent 25 years as a mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry before entering politics, per Inside Climate News.

French, the Republican nominee, stepped down as Tarrant County GOP chair to run for commissioner and beat the incumbent Wright in the May 2026 primary run-off, according to Inside Climate News.

The commission seats three members on staggered six-year terms, and all three are currently Republicans, Inside Climate News reported.

The European Commission has approved a German state-aid package worth EUR 35 billion to subsidize hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The scheme targets around 11 GW of hydrogen-ready gas-fired capacity by 2031, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Germany is committed to climate neutrality by 2045, a goal established in national law, according to the same report.

Australian energy ministers have agreed to look at plug-in photovoltaic (PV) systems and batteries as a route to give millions of people access to the federal Solar Sharer offer, RenewEconomy reported.

The Solar Sharer Offer, announced by federal Labor, was built in part around sharing the benefits of Australia's rooftop solar resource, according to RenewEconomy.

Plug-in equipment sits outside the conventional rooftop installation model, which requires a roof the household controls. Bringing portable PV and batteries into scope would widen the pool of people able to take up the offer, per the ministers' agreement to examine the option.

Washington state's Centralia coal-fired plant will stay available to run under an emergency order signed by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, who cited reliability problems on the grid in the Northwestern United States.

The order names TransAlta Centralia Generation, LLC and requires Unit 2 at the Centralia Generating Station to remain in a condition where it can operate, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Retirement had already been set for that unit at the end of 2025.

The directive begins September 13, 2026 and expires December 11, 2026.

The department frames the Centralia order as part of a wider pattern of keeping coal capacity in service, saying more than 17 gigawatts of coal-fired generation avoided going offline in 2025.

The Southern Environmental Law Center has sued the Tennessee Valley Authority over the utility's Cumberland coal plant, acting on behalf of Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club, according to CleanTechnica.

The complaint alleges TVA violated the federal Clean Air Act at the Cumberland Fossil Plant in Cumberland City, Tennessee.

CleanTechnica reported that the case centers on the utility's failure to take federally required steps to protect Middle Tennessee communities from the air pollution impacts of running the plant.

Houthi rebels took control of a key Red Sea port in Yemen on Thursday, wresting it from the country's Saudi Arabia-backed government, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Crude climbed to USD 108 a barrel the same day, the first time it reached that level since May, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The offensive was powered by arms and advice from Tehran, according to Reuters.