San Francisco's skies were thick with smoke from ongoing wildfires on Wednesday, largely blocking the sun from view amid hazardous air quality across the Bay Area.
The big picture: Roughly 14,000 firefighters are battling 28 major wildfires across California. There have been eight fatalities from wildfires this year and over 2.5 million acres have burned across the state, per Cal Fire.
Modeling the long-term future of global energy sources and demand was a fraught and dicey thing even before the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, but we're about to see a bunch of analysts take their best swings.
Driving the news: Next week BP will unveil the big annual look-ahead to 2050, while next month will bring midcentury outlooks from the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration.
It would be easy to feel some whiplash over recent Trump administration moves on oil-and-gas industry access — or lack thereof — to areas currently off-limits.
Driving the news: Trump used a Tuesday stop in Florida — a swing state with a huge electoral vote bounty — to announce an order that keeps the eastern Gulf of Mexico off-limits through 2032.
President Trump said Tuesday that he will extend a longstanding ban on offshore drilling off the coast of Florida, a critical 2020 swing state, and expand it to Georgia and South Carolina.
Why it matters: The announcement would further seal off the eastern Gulf of Mexico, a region long-coveted by oil companies.
Uber is immediately expanding its "Green" program to new cities and setting a longer-term target of having fully electric cars account for 100% of rides on its platform in the U.S., Canadian and European cities by 2030.
Why it matters: Those plans — and other new climate pledges Uber unveiled Tuesday — come as ride-hailing firms face growing scrutiny over their carbon emissions amid evidence they're cannibalizing public transit and increasing congestion.
California power giant Pacific Gas & Electric is imposing intentional outages to prevent extreme weather from igniting new wildfires in the state already facing widespread blazes.
Driving the news: The company announced shut-offs Monday night expected to affect 172,000 customers in parts of 22 counties and tribal communities.
General Motors is taking an 11% stake in the electric vehicle startup Nikola Corp. and will manufacture its planned Badger pickup truck, the companies said Tuesday.
Why it matters: It's the latest vote of confidence for Nikola, which is among a number of startups that have been attracting significant capital and investor interest before making any profits or vehicles.
The U.S. has spent the biggest share of its GDP on discretionary stimulus spending compared to other major economies, but it’s spent the smallest share on clean energy, per a new analysis from consultancy Rhodium Group.
Why it matters: To what degree the world invests in clean-energy technologies as it recovers from the pandemic-induced recession could go a long way toward reaching climate goals.
