2025's wild ride: The AI energy boom, climate rethinks and surprises galore
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This year took humanity on a wild ride — and energy was no exception.
The big picture: The AI boom came of age, climate ambition was reset, and the surprises never stopped.
Catch up fast: Here are the trends I'm reflecting on — anchored by the ones I predicted in January would drive this year.
Flashback: Every year since 2018, I've looked both back and ahead at the trends shaping the past year and the year to come, including a (sometimes humbling) reality check of what I had predicted at the year's start.
- While leading Cipher News: 2025 outlook, 2024 outlook, 2024 reflections, 2023 outlook, 2022 reflections
- And when I was earlier at Axios: 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018.
1. Cleantech scrutiny — and then some
"Scrutiny" was the word I used in January. It holds up — but President Trump went after wind and solar far more aggressively than I anticipated.
Friction point: Offshore wind took the biggest hit. BloombergNEF's forecast for U.S. offshore wind capacity plunged from 39 gigawatts to just six, per Canary Media.
On Capitol Hill, Congress also repealed more of the Inflation Reduction Act than many expected. But the story is more complicated than a clean rollback.
- A sizable chunk of cleantech support survived — including funding for advanced nuclear, geothermal, sustainable aviation fuel and battery storage.
- These are earlier-stage technologies that arguably need government backing more than mature renewables like wind and solar.
The intrigue: One energy insider told me that if you looked at the One Big, Beautiful Bill on its own — separate from the IRA — it would rank among the largest cleantech funding laws ever passed.
2. Humility and surprises
This one hits close to home. Cipher News, the outlet I was leading until July, shut down after funding changes at Breakthrough Energy, which is backed by Bill Gates.
Zoom out: Gates' shifting priorities reflect a broader reset across climate and tech — driven largely, but not exclusively, by Trump's election.
- From companies like Ford to institutions like the International Energy Agency, the forces pushing ambitious climate action clearly lost momentum this year.
Humility and surprises tend to travel together. Gates delivered one of the year's biggest curveballs by urging climate leaders to move away from "doomsday" framing and toward public health.
- And surprises were everywhere. Even accounting for present bias, last week's news that Trump Media & Technology Group (parent of Truth Social) is merging with nuclear fusion startup TAE Technologies felt like a Mad Libs headline come to life.
3. The real race over artificial intelligence
This ranked third in my January outlook. It should have been first.
- We're now so deep into the AI race that talks of bubbles are the norm.
The bottom line: We've spilled plenty of ink on AI and energy this year, and spoiler alert: We'll do a lot more next year. So I'll keep this brief.
- The tectonic plates beneath the AI–energy nexus started shifting in earnest in 2025. The only prediction I'm confident making for 2026 is that they'll keep moving — unless, of course, they stop suddenly in an AI bubble burst, which would be a movement of its own.
4. Europe's existential competition
The European Union is also recalibrating its climate ambitions — partly in response to Trump, but also because of deeper, unresolved tension over global competitiveness considering its higher energy prices.
Zoom in: The EU scaled back its proposed ban on gasoline-powered cars, softened emissions disclosure rules, and delayed a deforestation law, the New York Times reported last week.
Reality check: The bloc still has aggressive climate goals, and it's moving ahead on a controversial border tax based on carbon emissions.
5. Tariffs, China, Brazil, oh my!
This was my January catchall for geopolitics, and it largely holds up.
- Trump's tariffs rippled across the economy but somehow faded into background noise amid the AI energy rush and its knock-on effects.
- The annual United Nations climate talks in Brazil came and went with relatively little fanfare. In another surprise, the Trump administration largely stayed away — even after withdrawing (again) from the Paris climate agreement.
If you cover energy and climate, China is the biggest and most enduring story — so it's fitting, or perhaps weird, to end here.
- China flexed its geopolitical muscle by restricting exports of rare earth materials, critical to everything from clean energy to consumer electronics.
- As the U.S. pulls back from climate tech, China is extending its already sizable global lead — and pushing deeper into emerging areas like fusion.
What's next: We'll do a 2026 outlook early next year. What's on your list? Let me know: [email protected]
