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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 27, 2026

MEDIA CONTACTS
Stephanie Ambriz, 442-400-2534, sambriz@leadershipcounsel.org

BAKERSFIELD, CA — After a 6-hour hearing on October 14, 2026, the Southern Region Hearing Board of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District upheld the Authority to Construct Permit for a hydrogen energy project at the Kern Energy oil refinery. 

This decision came after community groups 184 Community Action Group and Comité Progreso de Lamont, represented by Leadership Counsel and the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, submitted a petition on May 29, 2026 calling for the revocation of the Permit. Petitioners alleged that District staff violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the AB 617 Community Emissions Reduction Program (CERP), and federal and state Stationary Source Review requirements. However, the Petitioners’ CEQA and CERP claims were dismissed at a preliminary hearing on August 12, 2026. The remaining Stationary Source Review claim, outlined in Petitioners’ trial brief, was argued at length on October 14.

“Residents living near the refinery suffer some of the worst air quality in the United States” said Vivyana Prado, Staff Attorney with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, “the Clean Air Act is supposed to improve air quality and alleviate related health issues. However, improper implementation and inadequate enforcement of the Clean Air Act at the local, state, and federal levels are making conditions worse. ”

“We simply ask that Kern Energy abide by state, federal, and Air District rules and regulations. It is the bare minimum the refinery can do for our communities,” said Kayla Karimi, Staff Attorney with the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment. “The Hearing Board’s determination last week allows Kern Energy to avoid doing even that bare minimum.”

Kern Energy has accumulated more than 500 violations over the last decade, which include release of more air pollutants than legally permitted, gas leaks and “fugitive emissions”, failure to monitor or report pollution, pollution control systems that are either not installed or not functioning, and more. Fence-line air monitoring shows daily exposures to benzene, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and nitrogen dioxide–chemicals linked to cancer, respiratory illness, and death. Flares and noxious odors frequently trigger emergency responses. Moreover, residents of Fuller Acres have consistently identified Kern Energy as a major source of pollution and a health concern. 

“While Kern Energy has paid fines, residents see no direct cleanup or benefits. Fuller Acres is treated as a sacrifice zone, where toxic exposure is normalized by industry and elected leaders,” said Jennifer Martinez, a Fuller Acres resident in the 184 Community Action Group. 

“Kern Energy has shown itself to be a bad neighbor,” said Diana Mireles, President of the Comité Progreso de Lamont. “The community does not feel safe with something as dangerous and new as hydrogen energy in Kern Energy’s hands, knowing they would rather pay fines than protect public health, as they have done for years. This is made worse by the lack of public emergency response planning.”

Community members remain deeply concerned about the lack of emergency response preparedness. Hydrogen leaks easily and is very flammable, which creates significant safety risks for surrounding communities. Furthermore, producing hydrogen energy from fossil sources can harm local air quality and release dangerous pollutants.

184 Community Action Group remains steadfast in their commitment to improve the health and well-being of their community.

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184 Community Action Group is a community organization formed by residents and their family members of disadvantaged communities, communities that face high economic, health, or environmental challenges, in and near Fuller Acres to advocate for the overall health and wellbeing of their communities, including equitable energy policy programs, and investments that protect public health, prevent climate change, and reduce risk of harm to residents. 

Comité Progreso de Lamont is a community-based organization formed to achieve a healthy environment and to improve community quality of life through resident and advocacy. The Comité works to hold local polluting industries accountable using collective action strategies and legal and policy tools.

Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability works alongside the most impacted communities in the San Joaquin Valley and Eastern Coachella Valley to advocate for sound policy and eradicate injustice to secure equal access to opportunity regardless of wealth, race, income, and place. Leadership Counsel focuses on issues like housing, land use, transportation, safe and affordable drinking water and climate change impacts on communities.

Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN) supports grassroots leadership to promote environmental health education, community organizing, collaborative dialogue, and political involvement among rural, underserved communities of color in the San Joaquin Valley. 

The Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment works in Kern and Tulare counties alongside the most impacted communities to protect our air, land, water, health, and economic security through collective action, community lawyering, and policy advocacy.

The post After Years of Pollution, the Kern Energy Hydrogen Project Will Proceed Without Environmental Review appeared first on Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability.

After losing in the first round of elections and given little chance of victory, Lula, with a powerful mobilization of working people and a head-on confrontation with Meta and tech…

Op-Ed by Victoria Higgins, CCAN Action Fund’s Virginia Director, initially published in Richmond Times Dispatch.

Recently, NextEra CEO John Ketchum joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to celebrate a $54 billion investment in a new gas pipeline in Alaska. In his remarks, Mr. Ketchum said Trump has done an “amazing” job on energy.

Really?

If NextEra welcomes Trump’s energy policies, Virginians have cause to be concerned about the Florida-based company’s proposed acquisition of Dominion Energy.

Donald Trump promised voters he would cut electricity prices in half within 18 months; instead, by that deadline, residential rates had climbed at twice the rate of inflation. This was not bad luck; it was policy. His signature tax law gutted the clean energy credits that were bringing the cheapest new power onto the grid, and Rhodium Group projects that this move alone will push the national average household energy bill up by $78–$192 a year by 2035. Then Trump launched a war with Iran, choking off the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s LNG flows. The Pentagon estimates this has already cost $29 billion.

In a move so transparently ideological it’s nearly satirical, the administration has now agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer money to developers just to walk away from their offshore wind leases — after courts blocked Trump’s earlier attempts to kill the industry outright. That’s money spent to guarantee less power: offshore wind would have saved regional ratepayers roughly $400 million last winter. Estimates suggest that canceling the five major East Coast projects the administration tried to halt would add $45 billion to the bills over the next decade.

It’s all well and good for Mr. Ketchum. NextEra’s John Ketchum took home $24.2 million the same year Florida regulators approved a record $6.9 billion rate hike for its Florida Power & Light subsidiary. He is hellbent on “winning the AI race” and proudly brags that his company is spending a billion dollars a week to build the energy infrastructure to get there. And he’s not alone: 51 investor-owned electric and gas companies paid their CEOs a combined $626 million in 2025, while everyday families struggled to keep the lights on while putting food on the table. The numbers paint a picture of two Americas: nearly all (98%) Dominion shareholders voted in favor of handing the keys to Virginia’s energy future to NextEra. In contrast, 3 in 4 Virginia voters (76%) said the merger will raise electricity costs.

All of this makes it very clear to me: NextEra is not here out of a benevolent desire to achieve “capital and operating efficiencies” to the benefit of Virginia ratepayers. It is here to win the AI race, and the company is willing to shake hands with the Trump administration to do so. And if its track record in Florida is any indication, I worry it may be willing to go further than shaking hands.

Though the companies tried to withhold the document, a Virginia regulatory hearing examiner recently ordered Dominion and NextEra to release the infamous “Robo memo” to intervenors, which details an investigation into subsidiary Florida Power & Light’s alleged illegal political conduct in the Sunshine State. Among the allegations are that the company funded ghost candidates to spoil elections and surveilled journalists. While NextEra agreed to settle a related shareholder lawsuit and was never formally charged, the regulators’ choice to force the release of the memo in the merger proceeding is good news. It is an acknowledgment that political conduct is relevant to the companies’ ability to ensure just and reasonable rates.

Virginians won’t get a vote on whether to approve the merger, so they’re counting on regulators to read the fine print and the secret memos very, very closely. That due diligence should include the question: If NextEra thinks the last two years of Trump’s energy policy have been “amazing,” what does it have in store for Virginia?

Op-Ed by Victoria Higgins, CCAN Action Fund’s Virginia Director, initially published in Richmond Times Dispatch.

About the author: Victoria Higgins is the Virginia Director for CCAN Action Fund. Her career in environmental advocacy began with Green Corps, a rigorous training program for environmental organizers.

She worked on campaigns with Mighty Earth, Conservation Colorado, and Environment Virginia to hold corporate polluters accountable, pass state climate policy, and limit plastic pollution in Virginia’s waterways.

She received a Master of Science in Energy Policy and Climate at Johns Hopkins University. 

The post NextEra Support for Trump Energy Policies Is a Concern  appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

Whether global warming has accelerated (and how much it has accelerated) is one of the livelier debates in climate science at the moment. The physical case for it is fairly strong: cooling aerosol pollution has fallen substantially over the past two decades while greenhouse gas emissions remain near record highs. The observed rate of warming over the past decade is roughly double what it was over the prior four decades. But showing that this speed-up is statistically distinguishable from the normal year-to-year wiggles of the climate has proven surprisingly hard.

A new paper by Jin and Pu in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science argues that the data through 2025 now show a statistically significant doubling of the warming rate. I broadly agree with them that warming has sped up. But the method they use is problematic, and would find a significant acceleration in many simulated worlds where none exists.

To start with, let’s look at the data. The figure below fits a single continuous trend line to annual global temperatures since 1970, allowing the slope to change at whichever year fits the data best (2012, in this case). The rate of warming between 1970 and 2012 was 0.18C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.15C to 0.20C), while warming between 2012 and 2025 was 0.35C per decade (0.26C to 0.45C).1

Annual global surface temperatures from 1970 to 2025 relative to 1850–1900 (black dots), with a continuous trend line whose slope changes in 2012, the best-fitting year (blue and orange). Teal dots show the same data with the estimated effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions and solar variability removed, for reference. Observations are the average of HadCRUT5, GISTEMP, NOAA GlobalTemp, Berkeley Earth, ERA5 and JRA-3Q datasets.

Whether that change is “statistically significant” depends on how you test it. Beaulieu et al. (2024) used a demanding test that allows the change to happen in any year, and found that a surge in warming was “not detectable yet” with data through 2023. Foster and Rahmstorf (2026) applied the same test to data through 2024 and also found no significant acceleration in the raw data, but argued that acceleration was detectable (with 98% confidence) after removing the estimated effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions and solar variability. Running their test on the raw data through 2025, I get a p-value of 0.06 for the average of six global temperature datasets (just shy of the conventional 0.05 threshold). Across the individual datasets I’ve used in this analysis it ranges from 0.02 (NOAA) to 0.13 (JRA-3Q), with only NOAA and NASA’s GISTEMP below 0.05. If El Niño, volcanoes and solar are included in the same statistical model, it drops below 0.001.

What Jin and Pu did

Jin and Pu report warming of 0.40C per decade over 2011-2025 compared to 0.20C per decade over 1971-2025, and find the difference statistically significant in all five datasets they examine.2 If you fit a separate trend line to 2011-2025 you do get a number close to theirs (0.41C per decade on the six-dataset average I use here).

The problem lies in how the comparison is constructed. Back in 2017, Rahmstorf, Foster and Cahill described “two important but underappreciated pitfalls waiting to trap those testing for a change in the trend of global temperature time series.” These are “the multiple testing problem, and failure to account for the additional degree of freedom when one uses a model with a jump discontinuity (a broken trend).” At the time that paper was published, these pitfalls were producing claims of a significant slowdown in warming (during the so-called “hiatus” period from 1998-2012). A decade later Jin and Pu’s approach runs into both of these problems, albeit in search of an acceleration rather than a slowdown.

The first is the broken trend. Jin and Pu fit two independent lines, one to 1971-2010 and another to 2011-2025, with nothing forcing the second line to start where the first left off. In the figure below the recent line starts 0.11C below where the earlier trend ended, which steepens it. A single continuous line with a change in slope at 2010 gives 0.32C per decade since then, still well above the 0.18C per decade of earlier decades but not as high as their approach would imply.

Annual global surface temperatures from 1971 to 2025 with separate Theil–Sen trend lines for 1971–2010 (blue) and 2011–2025 (orange), as in Jin and Pu (2026), compared to a single continuous trend line with a change in slope at 2010 (dashed). Same six-dataset average as Figure 1.

The second is how the split year was chosen. Jin and Pu tried every dividing year from 1980 to 2015 and found that “the largest and most statistically significant contrast in warming rates occurs when the dividing year is near 2010–2011. Accordingly, 2011 is adopted as the start of the recent warming period.” As far as the paper describes, the significance test at 2011 makes no adjustment for having searched across all those split years. Beaulieu and colleagues warned about exactly this: if the year of the change is “selected visually among the many possibilities where it can occur without accounting for this, statistical mistakes can ensue.”

Testing the approach on synthetic data

One way to see how much this matters is to apply the same procedure to simulated temperature records where we know there is no acceleration. To do this, I generated 5,000 synthetic records that each warm at a steady 0.20C per decade from 1971 to 2025. Each has year-to-year noise with the same size and persistence as the real temperature record. For each one I tried every split year from 1980 to 2015, kept the one with the biggest contrast between the before and after trends, and tested whether the recent trend was significantly faster using the standard 95% threshold.3

The figure below walks through the process. The first three panels show one of these synthetic worlds that the procedure flagged. Its true trend is a constant 0.20C per decade, but splitting at 2012 gives 0.19C per decade before and 0.36C after, a “doubling” that looks almost exactly like the real record. Across all 5,000 worlds, 22% to 34% are flagged as having a significant acceleration, depending on exactly how the two trends are compared. A test for significance at the 95% level should do this at most 5% of the time.

The separate-trend approach applied to 5,000 simulated temperature records that warm at a steady 0.20°C per decade with year-to-year noise like the real record. Panels 1–3 follow one simulated record that the procedure flags; panel 4 shows the biggest contrast found in each record, with those counted as significant in orange.

By contrast, the changepoint test used by Beaulieu et al. and by Foster and Rahmstorf, which builds the search over break years into its significance threshold, only shows a false positive rate of 5%. That extra rigor is why it is so much harder for that test to reach significance, and why its result through 2025 is just shy of the threshold despite a near doubling of the warming rate.

So what are the takeaways here?

A decade ago the same two shortcuts (broken trend lines and a split year chosen after looking at the data) made a temporary slowdown in warming look like a significant “pause.” The statistical tools developed in response to that debate (many of them by the same researchers now finding acceleration) are a big part of why a later review of the pause literature found “little or no statistical evidence” for a slowdown, while describing broken trends as a “common (but questionable) practice.” Applying them consistently means accepting that they will be slow to confirm an acceleration too.

But as I’ve noted, there is a consilience of evidence that leads us to conclude that this time acceleration is likely real, even if it remains just short of statistically significant in surface temperature records. Today the physics and the data point in the same direction, and the raw record is now sitting right at the edge of formal detection with the strictest available test.4 With 2026 on track to be among the warmest years on record, that may not remain the case for long. I’ll return to this question early next year once the full 2026 data are in.

1 These rates are for a continuous trend line fitted with an allowance for year-to-year persistence in the noise. Allowing for uncertainty in which year the change occurred widens the post-2012 range to 0.22C to 0.65C per decade. For comparison, our recent Indicators of Global Climate Change 2025 report puts the rate of human-induced warming at 0.27C per decade (0.2C to 0.4C) over 2016-2025.

2 The datasets they examine differ from ours in that they exclude reanalysis (JRA-3Q and ERA5) and include the Chinese CMST3 dataset. Running the Beaulieu et al. / Foster and Rahmstorf continuous trend approach on the average of the five datasets does barely find significant acceleration (p= 0.047), as the reanalysis datasets tend to have a bit more year-to-year variability and thus a higher threshold for detecting acceleration.

3 Jin and Pu used Theil-Sen trends with a rank-based correction for autocorrelation and describe the two trends as “statistically distinguishable at the 95% confidence level.” My version uses ordinary least squares trends with a similar correction. Requiring the 95% ranges of the two trends not to overlap leads to a false positive rate of 22%. Testing the difference between the trends against 1.96 standard errors results in a rate of 34%. Both count only falsely-detected acceleration, so counting slowdowns as well would raise both numbers.

4 It's worth remembering that there is nothing particularly significant about significance levels. A false-positive rate of <5% (1-in-20) is a useful test to avoid being mislead, but we should also not dismiss out of hand results that fall close to that level. The ~94% chance of acceleration that we see in surface records today remains a strong signal, and another year of data should make it even stronger.

Survival International has held a protest outside London's Science Museum to urge them to stop accepting sponsorship from the Adani Group.

“Dedicated to the conservation of Sandhill Cranes, Whooping Cranes and other migratory birds and their habitat along the Platte River.” This serves as the mission statement for Rowe Sanctuary and...

Anyone driving an electric vehicle through Hazard, Kentucky, now has a convenient place to recharge and spend some time downtown. 

Thanks to a partnership between the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky and Mountain Association, two new public EV chargers are now available free of charge at the Foundation’s office at 420 Main Street. Powered by solar energy from the Foundation’s rooftop, the chargers offer residents and visitors an easy way to charge their vehicles while exploring local businesses. 

“While their vehicle charges, visitors can experience everything this downtown has to offer. They can get a coffee at Hazard Coffee Company, browse books by Appalachian authors at Read Spotted Newt, or grab food at one of our many restaurants,” said Robin Gabbard, President of the Mountain Association. “In this way, the chargers becomes both transportation infrastructure for the broader region and an economic development asset.”

The Mountain Association’s energy experts worked with the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky to facilitate the installation of solar panels at its headquarters in 2021 and supported an expansion of that system in 2026, which was installed by HOMES, Inc. of nearby Whitesburg, Kentucky. Today, the solar array produces enough energy to generate surplus solar credits, helping offset the cost of providing free community charging. 

The Foundation hopes the chargers will serve as a welcoming resource for both residents and travelers while encouraging people to spend time in downtown Hazard. The stations are available through the Foundation’s “Charge What You Need. Give What You Can.” initiative. Drivers can charge for free and make a donation to the Charge It Forward Fund if they are able to. Contributions support the Foundation’s work across Appalachian Kentucky and help maintain free charging access for future users. 

Hope Broecker of Mountain Association, Fuzz Johnson of HOMES, Inc. and Josh Bills of Mountain Association at the ribbon cutting on October 23, 2026.

“We’re always looking for ways to partner in work that makes a meaningful difference across our region and benefits our communities,” said Kristin Walker Collins, CEO of the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky about the partnership with Mountain Association and HOMES, Inc.

As electric vehicles become increasingly common, charging stations are becoming an important part of the infrastructure that connects communities across Eastern Kentucky and beyond. 

“As more EV chargers come online across Eastern Kentucky, Appalachia and the U.S., each new installation strengthens the region’s ability to attract visitors, support residents, and connect communities,” said Hope Broecker, Energy Specialist with the Mountain Association. “We’re proud to support investments that help ensure communities like Hazard stay competitive as more EVs come onto the road.” 

For decades, communities like Hazard have worked to strengthen their downtowns, attract visitors, and create places where people want to spend time. Mountain Association is proud to have supported these efforts through energy projects, business support, downtown revitalization initiatives, and capital investments.

Learn more about our work in Hazard over the decades here.

For any community interested in EV Chargers, the Mountain Association is offering a free webinar on November 4 from 11am-12pm. Please find more details here: https://mtassociation.org/ev/

The post Free EV Chargers Give Drivers a New Reason to Stop in Downtown Hazard  appeared first on Mountain Association.

The surprise re-election of Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday, in a tight race against right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, has raised hopes the country can meet a flagship target to end deforestation in all its biomes by 2030 and advance international fundraising to protect rainforests.

Defying expectations to win an unprecedented fourth term in office, Lula – who turns 81 this week – said in his acceptance speech that “we will show the world how climate policy is handled in this country”, and highlighted that, during his last four years as leader, the country has reduced deforestation every year.

Earlier this month, new data from Brazil’s space agency showed that forest-clearing in the Amazon fell to its lowest on record, after the introduction of a deforestation action plan that constrained illegal cattle ranching from expanding into the world’s largest rainforest.

Brazil leads “encouraging” decline in global rainforest destruction in 2025

At an international level, the country has long championed forest conservation, spearheading the creation of the newly established Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). As president of last year’s COP30 climate summit, the country is also developing a global roadmap to halt forest loss by the end of the decade, in line with a global goal, which will be presented at the upcoming UN climate summit in Antalya.

‘Much more needs to be done’

In 2023, Lula’s previous administration introduced a deforestation action plan that set a target of zero deforestation by 2030, achieving swift results. His re-election paves the way for this downward trend to continue.

Carlos Nobre, a veteran Brazilian climate scientist and co-chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon, said Brazil now has a “historic opportunity” to prevent a tipping point where large parts of the Amazon rainforest could turn into savanna, with dangerous impacts for the planet’s climate.

“The reduction in deforestation over recent years has been crucial, but much more needs to be done. Ending deforestation by 2030, tackling forest degradation and accelerating large-scale forest restoration are urgent priorities,” he said.

Anders Haug Larsen, advocacy director at the Norway Rainforest Foundation, described the election result as a “relief”, adding it makes it more attractive for donors to support rainforest protection in the country.

“Hope is a scarce commodity these days,” he said. “The international community must grasp this opportunity to strengthen efforts towards zero deforestation in the Amazon.”

Rainforest fund boosted by election result

Brazil was the original proponent of the TFFF, one of the highest-profile initiatives aimed at channelling new finance to protect the world’s rainforests. The fund aims to raise public seed capital to invest in financial markets, and then pay rainforest countries from the returns on those investments.

Despite being a developing country, Brazil has pledged $1 billion to the fund and is expected to play a key role in helping reach its goal to raise $10 billion from governments by the end of this year.

“We need more countries to come on board to meet the mobilisation target of $10 billion this year, and this election should inject trust in the calls from rainforest countries for support to their forest protection efforts,” Larsen said.

Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone

On Monday, the day after the election result, the Netherlands announced a contribution of up to $500 million to the fund, which will be disbursed over ten years and is still subject to parliamentary approval. This brings the total pledged to the TFFF from a range of countries to $7.8 billion.

Norway’s climate minister Sigrun Aasland told a TFFF event on the sidelines of the UN biodiversity summit in Yerevan that she was hopeful the $10bn goal could be achieved by the end of this year.

Brazilian officials have led the TFFF’s fundraising efforts and said they are in conversations with more potential donors including China, Korea and Japan.

File photo of Amazon forest in Brazil. (Photo: SFBflorestal/EYEPRES) File photo of Amazon forest in Brazil. (Photo: SFBflorestal/EYEPRES) Congress shifts further to the right

Sonia Guajajara, former minister of Indigenous Peoples in Lula’s government, celebrated the president’s re-election but cautioned that the 20 indigenous territories created under his current administration must be consolidated, as they are “essential to tackling the climate crisis and preserving our biomes”.

Veteran Brazilian diplomat Bráulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, meanwhile, noted that Lula faces a difficult political scenario, as right-wing pro-Bolsonaro lawmakers have gained more seats in both legislative chambers. He added that the courts will become key battlegrounds to challenge anti-climate legislation.

Observatório do Clima, a network of Brazilian green groups, said seven out of every ten representatives and senators who will make up the next legislature are likely to vote against the climate and environmental agenda, urging Lula’s administration to strengthen its action in parliament and expand alliances.

Still, Ferreira de Souza Dias echoed the widespread view among climate policy-makers that a Bolsonaro win would have been “terrible” for the rainforest and Indigenous peoples, and said the country had avoided a scenario where deforestation threatened to increase again.

This story was amended after publication to correct the currency of the Dutch TFFF pledge from euros to dollars.

The post Lula’s election win in Brazil raises hopes for zero deforestation drive appeared first on Climate Home News.

African governments are developing policies to manage waste from solar panels, batteries and other clean tech equipment as installations surge, with officials warning the energy transition could create a new environmental problem unless it is accompanied by investment in recycling and reuse.

Many African households and businesses are increasingly turning away from unreliable grid power or deciding not to wait for access, and are installing more solar panels and battery storage. Data from energy think-tank Ember, published in August, projects that the continent will install a record 17 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2026 – equal to around 100,000 solar panels every day. This would mark the third consecutive year of record growth, following increases of 51% in 2025 and 25% in 2024.

While generally a welcome sign of progress towards a cleaner energy mix, this trend could also create a headache for African officials. Anselm Marungu, Namibia’s deputy minister of environment, forestry and tourism, believes rules should be put in place to ensure that valuable materials can be recovered from discarded solar panels, batteries and inverters at the end of their useful life.

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Some of the materials and minerals the world needs for manufacturing clean energy technologies – including glass, aluminium, copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel – can be obtained by recycling solar panels, inverters and batteries.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that recycling could reduce growth in new mining needs by 40% for copper and cobalt and by 25% for lithium and nickel by 2050, thereby reducing the social and environmental impacts associated with conventional extraction.

Speaking at a pan-African policy conference on circular value chains this month, Marungu said the success of these technologies depends not just on how quickly they are installed, but also on whether the materials are sourced responsibly, the equipment maintained and its components recovered to create economic opportunities across their entire life-cycle.

He called for sound policies, sustainable investment and circular business models that can become the foundation of new industries, green jobs and stronger African value chains. Solar panels, batteries, inverters and tubes “must not become tomorrow’s environmental burden”, he added. 

From importation to end of life

When not properly disposed of or handled during recycling, discarded solar panels and batteries can release hazardous substances into the environment, contaminating soil and water and exposing waste workers and nearby communities to toxic materials which can cause lung cancer and damage vital organs.

Innocent Barikor, director-general of Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), said the rapid uptake of off-grid renewable energy has made it necessary to strengthen waste management rules and develop a framework for reusing materials from equipment. 

UN sets steep emission cuts to reverse 1.5C overshoot by end of century

Nigeria is Africa’s second-largest importer of solar technologies, bringing about 400 billion naira ($295 million) worth of equipment into the country in 2025. This has led to the drafting of a national policy on waste management for off-grid renewable energy equipment, which has been validated by relevant government institutions, regulators and development partners, and is now awaiting cabinet approval. 

According to Barikor, once approved, the policy will require producers, distributors and importers of renewable energy technologies in Nigeria to “to take responsibility for these products from the beginning to their end of life”. Commonly known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the policy is expected to support the development of a recycling value chain by requiring companies to take back and properly manage products once they become waste, Barikor said.

“We believe a policy will enable us to be able to manage what will become a very rowdy outcome of this particular [renewable energy] space,” he said.

Some countries develop regulation

Last week, energy ministers of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) adopted a regional framework on the deployment of battery energy storage systems and similar technologies, with requirements for the safe management, dismantling, reuse, recycling and disposal of batteries.

Some other African countries have previously strengthened rules on e-waste involving renewable technologies.

In 2024, Kenya introduced the Sustainable Waste Management (Extended Producer Responsibility) Regulations, requiring producers and importers of listed products, including electrical and electronic equipment and batteries, to put in place a system for dealing with them even after consumers stop using them. Companies are required to arrange for or finance the collection of discarded products, as well as their recycling and safe disposal.

Can giant batteries unlock Africa’s green industrial future?

Namibia, meanwhile, is preparing investment opportunities for waste buy-back centres and innovation hubs, said Marungu, with pilot projects already incentivising recycling in the country. The southern African country’s Sixth National Development Plan, launched last year, includes plans for modern recycling infrastructure aimed at reducing landfill waste, attracting private investment and creating green jobs.

The country wants to move from a linear to a circular society through the principles of reduce, reuse, recycle and regenerate to minimise waste and reduce environmental impacts, according to the plan.

Regional corporation and investment

Policies alone, however, cannot guarantee success, the conference heard. Diana Dalton, deputy high commissioner and development director at the British High Commission in Nairobi, said collaboration is needed. The African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) offers a platform to strengthen regional value chains and promote a more integrated approach to recycling renewable energy equipment, she said.

Loss and damage fund agrees $20m for Nepal but rich nations warn it should not set precedent

Regional coordination could help harmonise standards, align regulatory approaches, strengthen markets and enable cross-border trade, creating the scale needed to attract investment and develop regional recycling value chains, she added.

Dalton said this would require investment in infrastructure and skills, as well as collaboration between governments, industry, academia and development partners. She also called for stronger systems to collect, repair, refurbish and recycle renewable energy equipment, alongside support for local manufacturing and innovation.

Namibia’s Marungu said regional cooperation will enable the recycling of large volumes of materials and improve commercial viability, adding that African countries should share experiences, harmonise standards so that equipment and materials can move across borders, and pursue shared treatment and recovery solutions. 

The continent needs a plan to tackle renewable energy waste before large volumes of obsolete equipment accumulate, he said, urging development partners and financial institutions such as the African Development Bank to de-risk investments that can support a circular materials value chain. 

Nigeria’s Barikor said international support could help African countries develop data systems and a regional registry to track producers’ responsibilities for managing waste. He added that countries could also align their Extended Producer Responsibility rules through the African Continental Free Trade Area, helping ensure that global manufacturers face similar requirements across African markets.

“Africa needs to have common standards,” he emphasised.

The post African governments strengthen waste rules as solar and battery use surges appeared first on Climate Home News.

Countries should be willing to overlook “mild amounts of corruption” in government if it serves the larger goal of political stability, according to a U.S. lawyer and political activist closely aligned with U.S. President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.

“This may be the most provocative thing I say,” explained Will Chamberlain during a speech earlier this month at the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) in Jerusalem, an event that brought together far-right figures from Europe and Israel along with MAGA leaders closely linked to the Trump administration.

Chamberlain is vice president for external affairs at the Edmund Burke Foundation, which organizes NatCon, a conference that in previous years has been hosted in cities across the U.S. and Europe.

He is also senior counsel with the Article III Project, a MAGA group set up to fight against “lawfare,” which it describes as efforts by “Marxist” Democrats to weaponize the justice system against Trump and his political allies. The group has recently targeted what it calls “climate lawfare,” which refers to lawsuits that aim to hold oil and gas companies accountable for misleading the public about climate change

“Corruption is bad,” Chamberlain said during his Oct. 8 speech at NatCon. “But I think in general, countries should be willing to tolerate mild amounts of corruption in order to avoid lawfare.”

Chamberlain, through the Article III Project, works with the conservative political strategist and lawyer Mike Davis, who claims credit for helping win the nomination fights of conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Chamberlain’s comments come as the U.S. approaches midterm elections on Nov. 3 where voters have identified government corruption as a defining issue.

He argued that efforts to impeach and prosecute politicians for corruption have driven up the stakes of elections to the point where candidates either win or risk going to jail, citing the example of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president serving a jail sentence for planning a coup following his 2022 election loss.

He also cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges including fraud and accepting bribes. Earlier this year, Trump said Netanyahu should be pardoned. Chamberlain defended that position, arguing that pardons are a useful tool for reducing political tensions.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of them,” he said. “I think too many people are so obsessed with the idea that no one can ever be above the law that they’ll let their country tear itself apart.”

He added, “There’s another old maxim, ‘let justice be done though the heavens fall.’ I think that’s a bad impulse.”

Chamberlain didn’t respond to questions from DeSmog.

‘Climate Lawfare’

This year’s National Conservatism Conference in Israel featured speeches from senior White House official Sebastian Gorka, as well as Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, which authored the Trump policy blueprint Project 2025.  

It took place as Chamberlain’s legal group, the Article III Project, turned its attention to the dozens of lawsuits filed by cities, counties and states across the U.S. against Big Oil.

In early October it co-hosted a Washington, D.C., event where conservative legal experts argued that efforts to hold oil and gas companies legally liable for misleading the public about climate change is a form of “climate lawfare,” which one participant defined as “trying to basically drag these fossil fuel companies into court to get access to their documents and, of course, their pockets.”

The occasion for the event was the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear oral arguments from the oil companies Suncor and Exxon, which are trying to get the court to invalidate a lawsuit against them currently proceeding in Colorado state court.

That Colorado lawsuit alleges, based on extensive historical documentation, that these and other oil companies engaged in multi-decade campaigns to stave off climate regulation by running disinformation campaigns around their key role in global temperature rise.

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has framed this history of climate denial as large-scale deception meriting federal investigations and lawsuits. In 2024, Whitehouse described the Trump administration’s reported offering of political favors to the oil industry in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions as “the definition of corruption as the founding fathers would have used the term.”

From the perspective of MAGA legal activists such as Chamberlain, “lawfare is worse than corruption.”

“I mean, corruption’s bad. I kind of imagine it is like a slow-growing cancer that can undermine ultimately and eventually really hurt your country,” he said.

“But lawfare — and reciprocal, brutal lawfare against heads of state, especially — is kind of like having a gushing, gaping bullet wound in your chest,” he added.

‘Openly Corrupt’

That position appears out of step with many U.S. voters. A recent Fox News poll suggested that 88 percent of voters are “extremely/very concerned” about “corruption in government,” making it the top issue ahead of cost of living, healthcare, and the Iran war.

That poll came out following reporting in the Wall Street Journal that Kimberly Guilfoyle, then U.S. ambassador to Greece, had asked a Trump donor for $100,000 to pay off her credit card bill in exchange for favorable access to the administration.

That seemed to cross a line even for Chamberlain and his colleagues.

After Guilfoyle resigned on Oct. 13, Chamberlain questioned on X whether her resignation message was written by AI, while another senior counsel at the Article III Project described her as “an absolutely stupid pick for U.S. Ambassador to Greece in the first place.”

Yet, Chamberlain argued at NatCon that civil and criminal efforts in recent years to hold Trump legally accountable for alleged financial fraud, defamation, his role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, and other legal violations have been “an enormous strain on the president’s time and resources, as well as everybody else.”

Chamberlain claimed that without unique features of the U.S. legal system, including the lack of an attorney general independent from the White House, “I think Trump would be in jail,” adding that “the Western world would be worse for it.”

Meanwhile Trump has reaped $2.2 billion in 2025 revenues alone from his cryptocurrency holdings and other personal business interests. This has led former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission Larry Noble to describe Trump’s second term as potentially “the most openly corrupt administration in our history.”

The post As Midterms Loom, MAGA Lawyer Defends ‘Mild Amounts of Corruption’ in Governments appeared first on DeSmog.

In this issue of Solar Today, we interviewed five solar influencers to get their thoughts on the pace, opportunities, and challenges of the solar industry.

Jay Warmke

Jay Warmke

About the Influencer
Jay Warmke is the author of numerous green technology books and has developed renewable energy curricula for numerous colleges and universities across North America as the owner of Solar PV Training LLC.

He has served as vice president of the board of directors of Green Energy Ohio and as president of the International Certification and Accreditation Council. In 2015, he was elected to ETA’s Board of Directors and for the past 11 years has served as Chair of the Renewable Energy Committee. He also hosts a weekly show/podcast called Solar Noon Tuesday, which is syndicated with the Pacifica Network and posted weekly on YouTube.

1. On the question of DIY Solar: how would you compare the good of opening the majority of the population to rooftop solar access vs. the bad of lost installer jobs?

There is, of course, room for DIY in our industry. Balcony Solar is just a first glimmer of the potential within that sector.

Most home and business owners will never tackle a solar project. But those who wish to should be nurtured and supported. I would love to see the expansion of “solar barn raising” projects – where groups of people support each other by helping with installations on each other’s sites and benefiting from volume purchases.

Solar installers can certainly find a market in serving as expert consultants or project overseers on DIY projects – expanding their reach into a customer base which might never otherwise install solar due to high costs.

2. What is your comment on the fact that 70% of the cost of rooftop solar in the U.S. in 2026 is neither labor nor equipment but rather soft costs?

If the solar industry built cars, we would custom design each vehicle, apply for permits and patents on a case-by-case basis, and then wonder why people can’t afford to buy them. We, as an industry, need to move from a “high-margin/low-volume” business model to a “high-volume/low-margin” model.

If we reduced our costs to $1/W (as in Australia), we would not need high customer acquisition costs (they would beat a path to our doors). Full adoption of SolarAPP+ permitting would cut time and costs in permitting.

I think there is also room for pre-designed solar package options that would cut design and installation time and work for a large number (not all of course) of homes and businesses.

3. What does a “mature” solar market look like to you in 10–15 years, and what are we currently getting wrong about that trajectory?

Several trends are converging that will remake the way we view energy. First is the tsunami of load demand that will hit us over the next few years (data centers, electric vehicles, cryptocurrency, electrification of heat, electrification of industry, climate change).

The net result of higher load demand, slow generation expansion, a glacial regulatory process, and resistant/greedy utilities will inevitably result in dramatically higher electric prices and diminishing grid reliability.

Currently, over half of new solar installations include battery backup (as storage prices fall dramatically). 2026 is shaping up to be the year bidirectional EV charging becomes a reality. Soon many will simply view the grid as a backup power system. It is a very short step to disconnect altogether if utilities continue to make it difficult to do business with them.

I think we will see dramatic grid defection over the coming years as customers find they can provide energy for themselves at costs that are lower and reliability that is higher than can be delivered by utilities.

4. How do you see the balance evolving between federal incentives and local control in accelerating deployment?

It is my view that normal government policy can only accelerate or retard the adoption of a technology for a short period of time. Government can tinker around the edges – but it is economics that will ultimately determine winners and losers.

Solar, for the foreseeable future, is simply the lowest-cost form of energy available on the planet. In generating electricity, it is half the cost of methane (natural gas), one third the cost of coal, and a fraction of the cost of nuclear. Its only close competitor is wind energy (which depends on an adequate wind resource).

Governmental incentives, when working as designed, are put in place to allow a nascent technology the breathing space to compete with more entrenched technologies. Solar is now past that phase in our development. We should no longer rely on incentives to compete. We just need to convince all those “free market” politicians to stop subsidizing fossil fuels.

5. What technical breakthrough would actually change the game, versus just incrementally improving it?

I am tempted to say true bidirectional EV charging – which expands storage capacity and affordability dramatically. Imagine a college campus where every parking space is a battery and the campus has a virtual power plant in every parking lot.

But I think a more transformative innovation will be the evolution of energy as a service. One day we shall see energy, not sold in kWhs or gallons of gasoline, but as services that simply incorporate the energy they use as part of that service. When you subscribe to Netflix, you are buying bandwidth – but you don’t pay for the bandwidth; you pay for entertainment.

We are beginning to see the first glimmers of this transformation. In Texas, you can now subscribe to a battery backup for your home. You pay $29 per month (or whatever the cost from whatever vendor you choose), and they install a battery at your home. They make their profit by aggregating the thousands of batteries now connected to the grid as a virtual power plant that can sell power to the grid during moments of peak load demand. This is largely transparent to the homeowner – who has no up-front costs and pays a monthly fee, so they have power in the event that the grid goes down.

The grid will survive not because it is the best way to distribute power. That
is no longer the case. In 2026, solar+storage is cheaper than continuing to buy power from your local utility. It will survive because it has found a way to profitably market energy services that depend on customers being connected together within an energy network.

6. How do you see ownership structures (utility-scale, distributed, cooperative) evolving over the next decade?

I believe that within 15 years the largest provider of electricity in the nation will be a virtual utility. The hyperscalers of the world (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, etc) are fast becoming the largest consumers of electricity. They will soon find it profitable to vertically integrate power generation and distribution for their own operations (cutting out developers and utilities). They will quickly become the largest distributors of power to third parties as well, selling excess power at retail (not net-metered wholesale).

Apple, for example, could create the “I-Power” network where they leverage their grid access to facilitate transactions between solar owners (who are tired of getting ripped off by utilities with ever lower net-metering compensation) and potential power customers who can purchase this net-metered power at a fraction of the cost that utilities charge.

In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required that the Bell system lease their physical local distribution network to competitors. This led directly to the rapid expansion of the Internet.

A similar ruling for similar reasons might find that the regulated utility power grid gets a much-needed disruption from Silicon Valley – creating a system of connected energy services that fully accommodate virtual utilities, virtual power plants, micro-grids, and data-over-powerline services that transform our electrical system in a way that the Internet and wireless transformed telephony over the past few decades.

The regulated utilities cannot compete with Silicon Valley, but they will not go away. They will simply be relegated to the role of “maintainers of wire.”

7. Most overrated buzzword in clean energy?

“Payback period.“ Power is a forever cost. The price of electricity from solar should be compared with the cost of electricity from other sources – not some theoretical (and generally mythical) date when your electricity
will be free.

Mary Ellen Barker

Mary Ellen Barker

About the Influencer
Mary Ellen Barker is Co-Founder and CEO of Solar Land Agent, LLC, a woman-owned renewable energy firm specializing in solar and BESS site selection. Raised on a Georgia family farm, she brings experience in agriculture, business, and real estate to help developers and landowners create successful projects. She serves on the ASES Board of Directors and advocates for responsible renewable energy development, land stewardship, and meaningful community engagement.

1. On the question of DIY Solar: how would you compare the benefits of opening the majority of the population to rooftop solar access to the drawbacks of lost installer jobs?

I see DIY rooftop solar as an opportunity to make clean energy more affordable and accessible for American families. As electricity demand continues to rise, success should not be based on who does the installation. It should be about expanding solar adoption while maintaining high standards and supporting a skilled workforce. We should look for every responsible way to increase access to rooftop solar. Experienced installers will always be essential because structural integrity, electrical work, permitting, inspections, and utility interconnection require expertise. Innovation and expertise can work hand in hand.

2. What is your comment on the fact that 70% of the cost of rooftop solar in the U.S. in 2026 is neither labor nor equipment but rather soft costs?

Rooftop solar has higher soft costs because of its business model. Every installation is unique, with different structural, electrical engineering, design, permitting, inspection, and local labor requirements. Most homeowners also finance their systems, adding underwriting, lender, and dealer fees. Customer acquisition is expensive, often $3,000 to $5,000, due to door-to-door marketing, digital advertising, outbound sales, and commissions. Residential installers also carry overhead for vehicles, insurance, office space, and operating systems.
By comparison, utility-scale projects benefit from economies of scale, keeping soft costs closer to 15% to 30%.

3. How should the industry rethink land use conflicts especially in agriculture, conservation, and rural economies?

As someone who grew up on a Georgia farm and now helps site renewable energy projects, I believe we need a more balanced conversation about land use. According to SEIA, utility-scale solar currently uses just 0.07% of America’s farmland. By comparison, suburban development uses about six times more prime farmland, and golf courses use nearly three times more than solar. The conversation should not be agriculture versus solar. It should be about giving farm families and landowners choices, respecting property rights, and finding the right use for each piece of land. Agrivoltaics is another opportunity to help keep family farms thriving.

4. How do you see ownership structures (utility-scale, distributed, cooperative projects) evolving over the next decade?

I don’t believe one owner and model will dominate. As electricity demand continues to grow, utility-scale, distributed and cooperative projects will all play important roles. I believe we’ll see continued growth across every segment as the industry matures. Other countries have already shown what’s possible, and I think the U.S. is still in the early chapters of its solar story. We’ll also likely see more consolidation, with larger companies acquiring smaller ones, but I believe the companies that build trust, innovate, and deliver value will be the ones
that thrive.

5. If you had to explain Solar’s value to a skeptical community in one sentence, what would you say?

“We are not splitting the atom, just harvesting the sun.”

6. How do you see the balance evolving between federal incentives and local control in accelerating deployment?

Federal incentives can help create opportunity, but projects are ultimately built one community at a time. In my experience, what often gets overlooked is that it all starts locally. The energy transition does not begin in Washington. It begins with conversations in local communities, listening to landowners, engaging local leaders early, and earning trust before permits are ever filed. Incentives may encourage investment, but local relationships determine whether projects move forward. If we want to accelerate deployment, we need to invest as much in community partnerships as we do in policy.

7. Most overrated buzzword in clean energy?
“Energy transition.” I think the phrase “energy transition” implies we’re simply replacing one energy source with another. What I’m seeing is an expansion of our energy system. As electricity demand continues to grow, driven by AI, data centers, and advanced manufacturing, we’ll need every reliable electron on the grid. Solar is an important part of that future, but so are transmission, storage, and other generation resources. The conversation shouldn’t be about one technology winning. It should be about working together to build a stronger, more reliable, and more resilient energy future using all of the sources.

8. A project or place that changed how you see solar deployment?

The place that shaped me most wasn’t a solar project. It was the family farm where I grew up in Georgia. Farming taught me that land is deeply personal. It’s where families build their lives, weather hard seasons, and hope to leave something better for the next generation. That perspective has stayed with me throughout my career. Every time I sit down with a landowner, I remember that I’m not just discussing a project. I’m talking about someone’s legacy, and that conversation deserves respect, honesty, and trust.

Brett Little

Brett Little

About the Influencer
Brett Little is the education manager at the GreenHome Institute with over 15 years of experience in residential Green Building Consulting and training. Brett personally helped launch the Michigan Energy Works program over a decade ago. He added Solar and batteries to his own Green Home project in 2020, and then added more during a new roofing project in 2025. Brett is passionate about ensuring people who are excited about Solar also understand energy, efficiency, and electrification, and that health and comfort need to come first.

1. On the question of DIY Solar: how would you compare the good of opening the majority of the population to rooftop solar access vs. the bad of lost installer jobs?

My organization, the GreenHome Institute, seeks to empower people to make the places we live better, not necessarily to ensure solar installer jobs; anything that can lead to greater empowerment is good. But the downside is the risk of poor installations that could, at best, not save energy and, at worst, create safety problems. Therefore, I’m cautiously optimistic about doing it yourself: solar and battery plug-and-play systems, assuming there’s strong legislation and enforcement in place to protect people.

2. Please comment on the fact that 70% of the cost of rooftop solar in the U.S. in 2026 is neither labor nor equipment but rather soft costs.

I’ve heard some of these large numbers going around, but I haven’t seen them personally or anecdotally in my own system costs or in others’, so I’d like to see more evidence for that. Obviously, I agree that, compared to other countries, we have work to do to reduce soft costs by eliminating unnecessary red tape. In addition, we need more value: do the inspectors we pay for via permits actually look at electrical or roof safety? Do they understand utility savings and make sure people aren’t being ripped off?

3. What’s a widely accepted assumption in the solar industry that you think is wrong—or at least incomplete?
People still believe that Solar works less well in the cold, and of course the opposite is true. To be fair, when it’s cold in winter, there are fewer hours of solar output, so that part is true, but it’s usually not highlighted.

4. What technical breakthrough would actually change the game, versus just incrementally improving it?

I think one of the biggest complaints about solar is from people who try to use the excuse about lack of recyclability, so imagine if we made Solar the same way nature does it? 100% bio-based, compostable, locally manufactured, powered by renewable energy, and nontoxic. Just like a leaf!

5. How do you see ownership structures (utility-scale, distributed, cooperative) evolving over the next decade?

I think Community Solar will become the most popular way to reduce risk for everyone while still ensuring people receive benefits. Hopefully, it’s done at an even more local neighborhood level to generate microgrids that actually keep people’s power on.

6. What experience most changed how you think about energy—not just professionally, but personally?

I am not a full-time solar pro, but I need to understand it as part of a holistic home system for my work at the GreenHome Institute. However, the best way to experience solar is to own it. I first did it with a portable PV panel and battery, and later managed, financed, and purchased a solar PV whole-home project for my home. Later, I added more by doing a re-roofing project and adding more solar while putting back what had already been there. That has been the greatest experience for me.

Rob Sternthal (left) with friend and XIP colleague Aaron Richardson on the Sydney bridge climb.

Rob Sternthal

About the Influencer
For the last 20+ years, Rob has been a leading investment banking executive and recognized platform builder across the renewable power, energy, ESG and real assets sectors, advising on more than $25 billion of transactions. Prior to founding XIP, Rob was a Managing Director focusing on renewable power at Piper Sandler. Before that, Rob was responsible for building platforms at Rubicon Capital Advisors as well as CohnReznick (now CRC-IB). Rob founded and built CRC into a market-leader over ten years, managing a team of ~30 professionals that completed nearly $18 billion in transactions during his tenure.

Prior to CRC, Rob established and led multiple real estate and asset-backed securities practices for Credit Suisse in the United States as well as internationally. He began his career as an attorney for the US Securities & Exchange Commission as well as in private practice at Milbank. Rob received a bachelor’s degree in economics and French, with honors, from Emory University and a Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the Temple University School of Law. Rob is a Registered Representative of BA Securities, LLC. Member FINRA, SIPC.

1. On the question of DIY Solar: how would you compare the good of opening the majority of the population to rooftop solar access vs. the bad of lost installer jobs?

I don’t really see this as a loss of installer jobs. Even if panels become easy enough for homeowners to put up themselves, someone still has to install, service, and maintain them—just like any major appliance in your home. If making solar easier to self-install opens rooftop access to the majority of the population, that’s a clear win. The work doesn’t disappear so much as shifts toward maintenance and repair, and the addressable market grows large enough to support plenty of skilled jobs alongside far broader adoption.

2. What is your comment on the fact that 70% of the cost of rooftop solar in the U.S. in 2026 is neither labor nor equipment but rather soft costs?

It’s concerning, and it forces the question of where that money is actually going. When total costs run $3.50–$4.00 per watt, the biggest culprits are usually broker and sales fees and financing costs—not the panels or the crew on the roof. This is where the market has broken down: the companies originating these
assets are overpaying for origination, and that inefficiency passes straight through to the homeowner. Until we squeeze those soft costs out, rooftop solar will stay more expensive than it needs to be.

3. What’s a widely accepted assumption in the solar industry that you think is wrong—or at least incomplete?
For over a decade, the industry assumed that developing assets was itself the prize. Developers were rewarded with rich valuations and platforms sold for large multiples, even when they never held the assets or built recurring revenue that outweighed development spend and Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses (SG&A). That assumption no longer holds. Today there is no
platform value, only asset value, and those assets have to work harder: cash yields that were once 3–5% now need to be 7% or more. The business has shifted from selling a growth story to owning infrastructure that actually generates cash.

4. Which current policy mechanism is most overrated, and which underutilized lever could have outsized impact?

The Investment Tax Credit is the most overrated. It was meant to spur investment, but in practice it complicates financings. Historically, investors that bought ITC did not require or need insurance; with the advent of the transfer credit where the investor is simply buying the ITC, they wanted more protection, e.g., insurance. That insurance is used now on 80-90% of deals. Supporting the fair market value that sets the credit has spawned preferred-equity structures and, increasingly, insurance to protect the ITC—coverage rarely used before that now backs perhaps 80–90% of transferred credits. The underused lever is simplicity: a straightforward cash grant or a cleanly certificated, transferable credit would strip out layers of structuring and insurance cost, get capital to projects faster, and let more of each dollar reach actual deployment. Or we could just remove the ITC altogether if we can lower the cost of the systems themselves.

5. What experience most changed how you think about energy—not just professionally, but personally?

Buying solar for my own home. My summer bills dropped to nearly zero, then crept back up over time—especially once I added an electric car and my consumption grew. Watching my own electricity costs keep rising, even with panels on the roof, made the value of what we do tangible in a way no spreadsheet could. It’s one thing to model the economics for clients; it’s another to live them. That experience is a constant reminder of how meaningful this industry is to ordinary homeowners and businesses as we shift toward renewable resources.

6. If you had to explain solar’s value to a skeptical community in one sentence, what would you say?

It’s just math: look honestly at the cost of solar today, factor in where power prices are heading, and the simple economics make the case for using solar wherever you can.

7. Most overrated buzzword in clean energy?

“Platform Value.” Sellers still expect that they should be paid “platform value” or additional value for a renewable development platform. Buyers are generally not willing to pay this any longer, but may be willing to pay a premium for a company if they can justify it through other means (e.g., pipeline, synergies, necessity, etc.)

Tribal leaders are campaigning against the Senate permitting bill after a tense meeting with Senator Martin Heinrich, one of the bill’s sponsors and a longtime ally of Tribal nations. The All Pueblo Council of Governors (APCG) opposes the bill’s overhaul of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires federal agencies to consider how their projects would affect historic and sacred sites and to consult Tribes before approving them.

The bill would let agencies assess historic sites and project damage on their own and consult Tribes only after drafting their conclusions. Tribal historic preservation offices that miss new deadlines could lose funding, and Interior could take over their work. Nine Tribal organizations had previously asked the bill’s sponsors to strip the language.

Joey Sanchez, APCG’s chairman, attended the meeting and said Heinrich told participants that “only technical” changes would be made to the bill. “While he did not respond to requests that he offer substantive amendments such as striking the Section 106 provisions, it was clear that he was unwilling to do so,” said Sanchez. Heinrich’s office disputed that account, saying the senator told Tribal governors he was open to bipartisan amendments.

The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers said it “will continue to oppose this bill and call on Senator Heinrich and his colleagues to remove the title of the bill that covers historic preservation and draft a new one.” The Senate is expected to vote on the bill when lawmakers return after Election Day.

From lead paint to DNA tests: surprising discoveries from America’s national parks

In a new episode of The Landscape, Kate and Aaron talk to Robert Lull, author of the book Our Natural Lab: Remarkable Stories of Science from America’s National Parks, about the amazing discoveries that have come out of science that took place in our national parks. Kate and Aaron also talk about the negative impacts the Senate permitting bill, also known as the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, could have on public lands.

Quick hits AI gets people into trouble in the backcountry

High Country News

In U.S. gas talks with Kremlin, hidden financing for Alaska project emerges

New York Times

Poll finds 81 percent of Coloradans against public lands drilling

Aspen Daily News

Opinion: Proposed grazing rules would hurt Western cattle ranchers

Colorado Newsline

How Trump gave the worst polluters a free pass

New York Times

America’s newest national park sparks debate

Outside

Rollins says USDA is ‘full-bore ahead’ on Forest Service reorganization

PBS | The Hill

Opinion: Forest Service chief celebrates historic selloff of national forests, tells employees to feel proud

More Than Just Parks

Quote of the day

The American people don’t entrust their national treasures to public institutions so that some industry insider can auction them off to his former colleagues and congratulate himself for it.”

—Will Pattiz, More Than Just Parks

Picture This @usinterior

Somebody turned the saturation up on Mount Rainier.

Autumn has transformed the slopes of @mountrainiernps into a breathtaking patchwork of red, orange, yellow and green.

If you’re planning a fall adventure, check the forecast and park conditions before you go. Weather in the mountains can change quickly.

Photo by Filo Merid/NPS

 

 

Featured photo: Chetro Ketl at Chaco Culture National Historic Park. National Park Service

The post Tribal groups break with Heinrich over permitting bill appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Not long ago, DIY solar occupied a fringe part of the renewable energy industry.

The typical self-installer was often portrayed as an off-grid enthusiast building a remote cabin, a prepper seeking energy independence, or a hobbyist piecing together equipment from online forums. Installing solar yourself was viewed as an alternative lifestyle rather than a mainstream option.

That stereotype no longer reflects today’s reality.

The modern DIY solar customer is increasingly a suburban homeowner looking to lower electricity costs, a rural property owner preparing for outages, or a family planning for future electric vehicles, heat pumps, or battery storage. Many are connected to the utility grid and have no interest in disconnecting from it. Instead, they want greater control over one of the largest infrastructure investments they’ll make in their home.

This evolution has transformed DIY solar from a niche market into one of the industry’s fastest-growing customer segments.

But as self-installation has become easier physically, it has also become more complicated technically. Today’s homeowners have access to more equipment, more online advice, and more purchasing options than ever before. At the same time, choosing safe, compatible, code-compliant equipment—and navigating permitting, inspections, and utility interconnection—has become increasingly complex. The future of DIY solar isn’t simply doing everything yourself. It’s knowing which parts you should do yourself—and which parts still require professional expertise.

Bob Frank with his completed ground-mounted solar array. © Bob Frank, Unbound Solar

Three DIY Customers, Three Very Different Goals

One of the biggest misconceptions about DIY solar is that every self-installer looks the same.

In reality, today’s market consists of three distinct customer types, each requiring different levels of support.

The Full Self-Installer
These full self-installers typically have extensive hands-on experience as electricians, engineers, contractors, mechanics, builders, or skilled tradespeople. They’re comfortable reading plans, troubleshooting electrical systems, using specialized tools, and taking responsibility for complex construction projects.

A full self-installer may complete nearly every aspect of a solar installation, including mounting racking, installing panels, running conduit, pulling wire, configuring inverters, coordinating inspections, and completing utility interconnection paperwork. Even then, local regulations may still require a licensed electrician for certain portions of the work.

Alex Kuhlmann, in Nevada, exemplifies this group.

Although Alex has a mechanical engineering background and works in electrical software, he credits his success less to formal education than to a lifetime of working with his hands. He describes himself as someone who grew up turning wrenches, taking things apart, and figuring out how systems work. After installing his own 10.5 kW grid-tied PV system with two 15-panel arrays, he found that the physical installation was only part of the challenge.

The more difficult obstacle was navigating county engineering requirements and utility documentation, particularly after adding an EV charging load to his home. Professional system design, permit-ready plans, and engineering support helped move the project through approval.

Alex estimates that completing the installation himself saved a substantial amount compared to turnkey contractor quotes. Just as valuable, however, was gaining a deep understanding of how his system operates and how to maintain it over time.

His experience illustrates an important reality: capable DIYers still benefit from professional design and technical support.

The Hybrid DIY Installer
If one customer segment defines the future of DIY solar, it’s the hybrid installer. Rather than doing everything alone, hybrid installers divide the project strategically. They tackle work they’re comfortable performing—such as installing racking, mounting modules, trenching conduit, coordinating materials, and managing the schedule— while hiring licensed professionals for wiring, final connections, service work, or other code-sensitive tasks.

This group of hybrid DIY installers needs to know what they can safely do, what should be hired out, how to communicate with an electrician, and how to keep the project aligned with the design and permit documents. This approach combines meaningful labor savings with professional oversight and support where it’s needed most.

The main support this group needs includes: a clear system design, permit-ready plans, defined scope of work, equipment compatibility guidance, utility paperwork support, and enough technical documentation that both the homeowner and the electrician understand how the system is supposed to come together.

Eric and Lori Lynn Todd of Napa County, California, demonstrate how successful this model can be.

Wanting to be deeply involved in the project because they cared about quality, resilience, and understanding how their system worked, they managed much of the project themselves. They built the ground-mounted structure, coordinated documentation, completed trenching, and organized hundreds of individual project tasks.

Lori maintained a detailed project plan tracking every stage of construction. That was the right division of labor for their project: they handled much of the heavy work and project management, while receiving professional system design support as part of project planning and also hiring a qualified electrician to handle the code-sensitive electrical work.

Their greatest challenge wasn’t installing equipment—it was navigating Napa County’s rigorous permitting process, engineering requirements, battery regulations, and fire marshal reviews. Without professional design, documentation, and guidance, that process could have been extremely difficult.

Today, their solar-plus-storage system provides seamless backup power during outages, giving them greater resilience alongside long-term energy savings. They now power through outages without even knowing the grid went down.

Their project reflects a growing trend throughout the industry: homeowners want to stay involved without assuming unnecessary risk.

Sunni Schoepe (left) with helpers during a rooftop solar installation. Many guided DIY projects are collaborative, with homeowners taking an active role in the work while relying on professional design, plans, and technical guidance. © Sunni Schoepe, Unbound Solar

The Owner-Builder
The third category views solar differently altogether.

For owner-builders, solar isn’t a standalone purchase. It’s one component of a much larger property development project. Owner-builders want to understand what is being installed, why the system is designed the way it is, what their future expansion options are, and how to manage and maintain the system over time. For a major home energy upgrade, that knowledge and control can be just as important as the labor savings.

This group often includes rural property owners, off-grid homeowners, people building or renovating a home, customers adding power to a shop, barn, accessory dwelling unit, cabin, greenhouse, well system, or outbuilding, and homeowners who are already acting as their own general contractor on other parts of the property.

While owner-builders need professional design support, they also need flexible guidance as the project evolves; they are often responsible for completing system planning, site preparation, trenching, ground-mount work, equipment placement, racking, panel installation, coordinating contractors, managing scheduling, sourcing materials, and working through permits or inspections.

In addition, they also benefit from professional load analysis, system architecture, equipment selection, battery and backup design, ground-mount or rooftop planning, permit-ready documentation, utility or AHJ requirements where applicable, and clear guidance on what work should involve a licensed electrician or other qualified professional.

Mike O’Dell and his wife Rose install panels on a ground-mounted solar array at their off-grid property. Their project reflects the owner-builder side of the DIY solar market: customers taking an active role in building their own power infrastructure while relying on professional design and support. © Mike O’Dell, Unbound Solar

Mike and Rose O’Dell’s off-grid property illustrates this mindset.

They were not simply adding panels to an existing home. They were building the energy infrastructure for a property that includes a home, a well system, battery storage, backup power, and a dedicated “solar house” for equipment.

Mike was very hands-on, but what makes his story a strong owner-builder example is the larger project context. Solar had to fit into the way the whole property worked. Decisions about equipment location, cable sizing, pumps, batteries, loads, and future use all mattered because the system was part of making the property livable.

Throughout construction, design decisions evolved. Inverter locations changed. Cable runs extended. They worked through ground-mount decisions, off-grid power needs, and troubleshooting. Mike emphasized that equipment can be purchased from many places, but the real value was information, design guidance, and support after the sale.

His experience highlights why owner-builders value ongoing technical guidance long after equipment has been delivered.

Why Guided DIY is Replacing Equipment-Only Sales

There is a fundamental shift in how DIY solar is delivered. It’s no longer just about selling equipment; it is about providing professional support.

A successful DIY solar project starts before anything goes on the roof. It starts with a professionally designed system, safe and compatible equipment, a clear plan for permitting and interconnection, and an honest understanding of which parts the homeowner will do themselves and where they will bring in expert help. At a minimum, every DIYer should get expert support with system design and equipment selection.

Correct design is the foundation of the project. The system needs to be designed around the customer’s actual goals, home, utility requirements, site conditions, electrical infrastructure, and future plans. A customer who wants to reduce their power bill may need a very different system than a customer who wants to protect critical loads during outages. While a customer planning for EV charging, a heat pump, or future expansion may need a different design than someone simply offsetting current usage.

Equipment selection is just as important. The components need to be safe, certified, compatible, and appropriate for the installation. Solar should be designed as a complete and carefully constructed system, not assembled from a random pile of parts.

Permitting support is equally valuable.

Many experienced homeowners discover that the paperwork proves more challenging than the installation itself. Engineering documentation, utility applications, inspection requirements, equipment certifications, and local code interpretations vary significantly between jurisdictions.

Missing engineering documentation, equipment certifications or labeling, inspection requirements, incorrect assumptions, or unclear plan sets can delay a project – so they should not be treated as afterthoughts. Because the permitting process depends so heavily on the system design, it is much easier when the design, plans, and paperwork are coordinated from the beginning.

Success often depends less on installing panels, and more on correctly preparing documentation before construction even begins.

Kim Bloxom’s completed rooftop solar array. The project reflects the guided DIY model: capable homeowners taking an active role in their solar installation while relying on professional design, plans, and technical support. © Kim Bloxom, Unbound Solar

Customization Improves Safety—and Success

Customizing the experience matters because solar has to match both the customer’s capabilities and the project’s complexity. A simple grid-tied roof mount may require one level of guidance. A battery backup system, ground mount, off-grid property, service upgrade, or project with future EV charging may require much more design, documentation, and technical support.

Customization is also important for safety. Customers should be encouraged to take on the work they can reasonably and safely handle, while bringing in qualified professionals for the parts that require licensing, code expertise, or specialized experience. A good DIY model should not pressure everyone into doing everything themselves. It should help each customer make smart decisions about where to save money and where to get help.

Dan Fontaine’s rooftop solar array installed on a metal-roof outbuilding. Many guided DIY customers use solar not only for the main home, but also for shops, barns, garages, and other property infrastructure. © Dan Fontaine, Unbound Solar

The best outcome is a system that fits the homeowner, not just the house. Customization lets customers stay involved, control costs, and learn the system, while still getting the professional support needed for design, permitting, equipment compatibility, battery integration, and inspection. That is what makes guided DIY scalable: it meets people where they actually are.

The Danger of “Frankenstein” Systems

Unfortunately, one troubling trend has accompanied the growth of online equipment sales.

Some homeowners attempt to assemble systems from unrelated components sourced from multiple vendors based primarily on price.

Ian Denchasy’s rooftop solar installation in progress. The project shows how guided DIY customers can take an active role in installing their system while relying on professional design, equipment selection, and technical support. © Ian Denchasy, Unbound Solar

This “Frankenstein” approach often ignores one of solar’s most important realities: a solar installation is an integrated energy system—not simply a collection of individual products.

Panels, inverters, batteries, rapid shutdown devices, monitoring platforms, and electrical equipment must communicate correctly, comply with applicable safety standards, satisfy utility requirements, and remain serviceable for decades.

This concern becomes even greater with battery storage.

The rapid expansion of battery manufacturers has created more consumer choice—but also more confusion. Not every battery marketed online carries the certifications, compatibility, or long-term support necessary for residential installations.

Selecting equipment based solely on price can create inspection problems, warranty issues, performance limitations, and, in some cases, significant safety risks.

Ashton Grandy’s completed residential rooftop solar installation. The project shows how guided DIY solar can help homeowners use available roof space to build a system designed around their home and energy goals. © Ashton Grandy, Unbound Solar

Looking Ahead: DIY is All About Support

DIY solar’s next chapter extends well beyond rooftop panels.

Increasingly, homeowners are investing in complete energy ecosystems that combine solar, batteries, EV charging, backup power, intelligent load management, and software that coordinates everything automatically.

As these systems become more sophisticated, professional guidance and support become even more valuable.

Ironically, DIY solar has become easier physically, but harder informationally. There are more options, more online advice, more equipment brands, and more noise.

Tyler Hartline’s residential rooftop solar installation. Rooftop projects like this show how guided DIY solar can fit into a conventional home setting when the system is professionally designed and installed according to the project plan. © Tyler Hartline, Unbound Solar

As an example, YouTube, online forums, and social media have undoubtedly helped expand the market by showing homeowners that self-installation is achievable. But influencers should never replace experts – especially if affiliate marketing is involved. Solar is highly site-specific. Every home has unique electrical infrastructure, different loads and roof conditions, future energy needs, permitting requirements, and long-term goals that cannot be solved through a generic online tutorial.

The future of DIY is guided. Homeowners remain actively involved, but professionals provide engineering and technical expertise, and every system is custom designed to operate safely, efficiently, and reliably for decades.

This guidance also extends to post-install support. Many DIY companies are built around the transaction: sell the equipment and move on. But solar and storage systems are long-term infrastructure. Customers need monitoring, troubleshooting, firmware updates, warranty support, performance optimization, and a path for future expansion. That becomes even more important as systems include batteries, EV charging, smart load management, and backup power.

This model delivers something the original DIY movement often couldn’t: confidence that the system will perform exactly as intended long after the final panel is installed.

About the Author
Deep Patel is the founder and CEO of Gigawatt Inc., the parent company of Unbound Solar and Real Goods. Unbound Solar has provided DIY solar kits and expert support for over 19 years, serving homeowners, contractors, and professionals. Real Goods, established in 1978, is a legacy brand in the solar industry known for reliable solar and energy storage products. Through these brands, Deep is focused on expanding access to clean energy by combining education, high-quality components, and a customer-first approach.

The affordability of solar has still never been properly tested.

Solar’s competitiveness with conventional power becomes obvious when on-site energy systems supplant not merely the grid, but also heating and vehicles.

In recent years, electric technologies have hit the market that enable modular, interoperable power, heating, hot water, and vehicle systems to be energy independent.

Solar panels are dirt cheap, having dropped from over a hundred dollars per watt to pennies. EV manufacturers are making cars with bidirectional chargers, turning their batteries into energy storage, with the potential to minimize their impact on, and actually relieve, a congested power grid, while also maximizing on-site solar power that stays on in blackouts, eliminating fossil fuels.

How do we go from 5% of U.S. households with solar to 95%? Utilities should get out of the way. States must remove the obstacles they themselves created. Municipalities must actively promote measures to reduce solar soft costs, add value, and minimize fees and taxes.

Net metering is under attack, but solar is now so inexpensive that it no longer requires a corporate welfare system paid by taxpayers and ratepayers to beat fossil fuels.

The problem is no longer technology or even labor costs; it is middlemen. A codependency exists between government, “public” utilities, and industry: 70-80% of the average cost of U.S. rooftop solar today comes from “soft costs”: neither equipment nor labor but marketing, permits, and fees.

Read that again, and if you aren’t outraged, once again. Middleman-ism has become the big obstacle to solar normalization. Soft costs are excluding 95% of US buildings.

For decades we have been told that the energy transition is replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources. To succeed, the energy transition requires changing the energy user’s relationship to energy. DIY isn’t just about avoiding soft costs, professional installers, and financiers, but mastering energy technologies in the same way we’ve mastered computers and smartphones. Users should be able to use their own energy systems to capture benefits.

For many able-bodied Americans, DIY can avoid unnecessary labor costs and lower solar setup prices, especially for lower-income households that often cannot afford systems priced at three times the cost of equipment.

DIY is not just for off-grid systems. It is needed to normalize solar as an affordable presence in urban areas where nearly all energy is consumed. This dream has been in many ways supplanted by massive rural utility scale solar and grid-battery projects that feed the urban maw.

Because DIY can open up dense urban areas, it is the key to saving rural zones from wasteful investments in mega-infrastructure projects. Utility corporations love gigantic centralized projects because they ensure multi-decade revenue streams. Others hate them for industrializing the countryside and raising delivery charges.

Energy consumers and governments alike should learn from the DIY innovators in this issue who have entered the regulatory gray zone of semi-forbidden solar savoir-faire.

Governments should legalize, encourage, and actively facilitate DIY solar in place of punitive prohibitions and funding disqualifications. Regulators should require utilities to remove interconnection barriers and costly protocols for DIY solar systems. Solar permitting should be redesigned to actively support DIY permit applicants.

This first issue of Solar Today under our editorship is an effort to bring focus to perhaps the final frontier for the fulfillment of solar’s potential: systemic change.

Overall, “the U.S. wind industry remains on course to add 39 GW of onshore new-build capacity by 2030,” the report said.

Pax Silica represents a model of development that prioritizes the interests of global capital and geopolitical competition, over food sovereignty, democratic control over land and water, climate justice, and the rights and livelihoods of Filipino communities.

The post Philippines | Reject Pax Silica: Defend Food Sovereignty, Democratic Control over Land and Water, and Climate Justice appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Responding to the large-scale Israeli military operation and mass displacement in Hebron in recent days, Oxfam’s Response Lead in the West Bank, Mustafa Tamaizeh, said:

"This is not only a humanitarian crisis but a deliberate assault on the economic foundations of Palestinian life, as families lose their homes and livelihoods. The destruction of factories, workshops, and business premises is wiping out years of investment and hard work. As movement restrictions tighten under Israel’s illegal occupation, workers cannot reach their jobs, farmers cannot access their land, and businesses are cut off from customers and supply chains.

“These illegal actions amount to collective punishment and are accelerating the forced displacement of Palestinian communities across the West Bank. They come during the olive harvest, one of the most important sources of income for Palestinian farming families. Israeli authorities, however, are creating conditions that make it increasingly difficult for Palestinians to remain on their land, with escalating state-backed settler violence and severe access restrictions preventing many from reaching their groves to harvest the crops that provide for them and their communities.

“The restrictions are also severely affecting humanitarian operations, limiting Oxfam's ability to reach affected communities and assess needs at a time when humanitarian access is most critical. All aspects of life are being impacted. Children and students, for example, cannot reach their places of study, and even those in need of medical care are being prevented from accessing health services.

“The economic damage being inflicted on Hebron is not incidental. It is part of a broader pattern of dispossession and ethnic cleansing that is deepening poverty, increasing dependency on humanitarian aid, and undermining any prospect for a just and dignified future.

“In recent days, high-ranking Israeli officials have openly acknowledged they are considering plans for the largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967, with calls for operations in the West Bank to be conducted like those in Gaza. Against this backdrop Oxfam is calling for urgent action by the international community to stop Israel’s campaign of mass forced displacement, demolitions and state-backed settler violence, which amount to a policy of ethnic cleansing.”

A "national interest" won by giving away people's right to survival and their food sovereignty is no national interest at all.

The post La Via Campesina stands with KPL and KWPA: Stop Korea’s accession to the CPTPP appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Supply-chain security receives special attention in the plan, with CISA promising to “develop data-driven guidance and best practices” related to third-party dependencies. AI is mentioned only briefly.