Google's electricity, water use and greenhouse gas emissions all climbed to record levels last year as the company raced to build more AI infrastructure.

Why it matters: Google has invested more aggressively than perhaps any other tech company in clean energy, yet its environmental report released yesterday shows how difficult it has become to keep climate goals on track amid the AI buildout.

Driving the news: Google's data centers are becoming more efficient, but the company's AI infrastructure is growing even faster.

• "This rapid expansion in energy demand is a reality we must manage actively, and we're committed to ensuring that the growth of AI doesn't become a rationale for lowering our environmental standards," the report states.

By the numbers: Most are going up.

• Electricity demand jumped 37% in 2025 — up from a 27% increase the previous year and roughly 3.5 times higher than in 2019.
• Greenhouse gas emissions rose 18%, the largest annual increase Google has reported, driven largely by manufacturing AI hardware, including chips and servers.
• Water consumption climbed 34% to 10.9 billion gallons, more than double 2021 levels. Data centers accounted for most of the increase.

Zoom in: Rapid growth has shifted the benchmark from cutting total emissions to preventing them from rising even faster.

• Google signed a record 12 gigawatts of clean energy agreements and held its share of carbon-free electricity roughly flat despite soaring demand.
• Electricity-related emissions fell 3% from 2024, compared with a 12% decline the year before.

Reality check: Tech companies have been releasing this type of annual report for several years — Google since 2016. Until recently, they have served as a chance for tech companies to mostly boast about clean energy and climate accomplishments.

• Increasingly, with the AI boom fueling unprecedented growth, these reports are a reality check on those same ambitions.

The intrigue: Google devoted a larger section this year to AI's potential environmental benefits, continuing to argue the technology can reduce emissions elsewhere in the economy.

• It expanded from five initiatives with estimated emissions benefits last year to nine this year.

What we're watching: Other tech giants, like Microsoft and Amazon, are due to release their annual environmental reports in the coming weeks.

The bottom line: Once-routine sustainability reports have become a closely watched scorecard for whether AI companies can match their climate promises with the infrastructure boom they're building.

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Wait, what? The ink is barely dry on the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, and somehow the market is swimming in oil.

Why it matters: Middle East oil transit and production have resumed faster than many analysts predicted, helping push down prices.

Reality check: The market could tighten again, and prices could rise anew — and plenty depends on security in the Strait of Hormuz.

How it works: The June 17 deal effectively freed many loaded tankers that had been stranded.

• "A reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is translating into a near-term supply overhang of Middle East oil," researchers with the bank HSBC said in a note on the "mini-glut."
• Those barrels are entering a market with lower demand, thanks in part to China slashing imports. Higher U.S. and Russian exports and strategic releases from the U.S. and elsewhere are also adding to the supply.

"Until China returns as a buyer, short-term physical crude demand will be lackluster," veteran oil analyst Dan Pickering said in a commentary circulated last night.

What we're watching: The number of tankers heading into the strait to load oil.

• "The next inflection point is likely when the backlog is exhausted, which we estimate could be around two weeks if recent transit levels hold," HSBC's note states.

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⛔ Air Products, the industrial gases giant, scrapped plans for a multibillion-dollar Louisiana hydrogen, ammonia and carbon capture project. It also won't proceed with a liquid hydrogen plant in Arizona.

• Why it matters: The reversal — and the $2.9 billion write-down that comes with it — is a stark new sign of hurdles to commercializing low-carbon hydrogen.
• State of play: The company's stock jumped 8% yesterday, signaling that investors weren't bullish on the prospects for the huge Louisiana project, which Air Products said would not meet its "stringent return criteria."
• The bottom line: The future of U.S. hydrogen projects "is in great question given lack of support for climate action, no federal climate policy and a more challenging fiscal picture coming into the future," Joseph Majkut, head of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells Bloomberg.

💰 Joulent, a new AI power infrastructure company launched by investment firm Engine No. 1, snagged $1.75 billion from National Grid's venture arm, it said today. It gives National Grid a 35% stake.

• Why it matters: It's a gas-gas-gas, at least initially. Joulent's first project is a collaboration with Chevron and turbine maker GE Vernova to power a Microsoft data center campus planned in Texas.

💵 Investment heavyweight KKR is acquiring U.S. and Canadian renewables and storage assets of France-based EDF in a $4.2 billion deal.

• The big picture: KKR cited data center growth and other power demand drivers in unveiling the deal.

👀 Via Reuters, "Bloom Energy and Brookfield said on Tuesday they had expanded their partnership to ‌finance power projects for AI infrastructure, boosting their funding framework fivefold to $25 billion to accelerate the global deployment of Bloom's ​fuel cells."

🤝 Commodity trader Mercuria and Italy-based multinational oil and gas firm Eni are forming a global energy trading joint venture.

• Why it matters: The FT reports that Eni is looking for a piece of the action after rivals BP, Shell and TotalEnergies have "reaped huge returns from energy price volatility."

Cancellations of U.S. AI data center projects quadrupled last year and have accelerated further in 2026, a new report from energy and climate solutions advisory company Carbon Direct finds.

Why it matters: The surge of scuttled projects is "structural, not episodic," the report states.

• Developers need to fundamentally reshape their approach, it concludes.

The big picture: Between January 2024 and May 2026, community opposition "stalled, blocked, or resulted in withdrawals" of $137 billion to $172 billion in announced AI data center capacity across 46 projects in 20 states, it states.

• The firm, whose clients include global hyperscalers and Fortune 500 companies, dug into what unraveled specific projects.

Friction point: Developers are falling short by engaging in "reactive communications" and offering community benefit packages late in the process.

What's next: It recommends a revised strategy, marked by site selection that lowers the risk of opposition, and early outreach.

• "Developers who treat community engagement as a permitting formality are burdening communities and breaking trust, and it is costing them billions in capital and future opportunities," said Grant Gutierrez, the firm's head of community impacts.

That's how many electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. in the second quarter, per Cox Automotive tracking.

Why it matters: It's a 13% jump from the prior three months, but still down 22% year-over-year, reflecting the loss of federal purchase subsidies in the 2025 GOP budget law.

• EVs had a roughly 5.9% market share in Q2.
• "The new EV market is normalizing after last year's incentive-driven surge, with demand settling into a more sustainable pattern," said Cox's Stephanie Valdez Streaty.