The group Climate Power's new digital ad in the swing-y states of Georgia and Arizona is all about energy prices — and says nothing about the planet.

Why it matters: It perfectly distills an ongoing political trend in the second Trump era.

• Climate and clean tech advocates have been making costs — rather than climate — the focus of their campaigns as power and, more recently, gasoline prices rise.
• It's a recognition that the economy is the most potent political topic, while polling tends to show that climate is a lower public priority.

Driving the news: Climate Power yesterday announced a six-figure buy in the two states.

• An ad on streaming and social media platforms contrasts rising power and pump prices with President Trump's pledges to lower costs.
• The ad — via Climate Power and other advocates' "Protect Our Jobs" project — doesn't cite climate or clean energy.

Yes, but: New websites focused on utility policies, tailored for both states, do argue that the rollback of federal clean energy policies is raising prices, among other arguments.

• And mailers about rate increases in both states cite extreme weather and cuts to clean energy programs.
• "It's important to highlight Donald Trump's broken promise to lower energy costs and remind people how his policies, including taking a sledgehammer to clean energy, are making the energy affordability crisis worse," said Climate Power senior adviser Jesse Lee.

State of play: Climate Power's digital buy is a striking example of environmentalists making prices their top message ahead of the midterms — but nowhere near the first.

• Just this week, the League of Conservation Voters and the progressive group Honest Arizona launched a new ad against GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani.
• It's mostly focused on prices, but it does cite his vote to "cut clean energy production." Backers of the 2022 climate law argue its rollback in last year's GOP budget law will raise costs.

Zoom out: A related phenomenon is Democrats pulling back from the aggressive climate messaging that defined the 2020 election cycle. Axios' Alex Thompson and I explored the topic last August.

• More recently, Semafor's David Weigel wrote about the "reorganization of progressive and Democratic campaigning around 'affordability.'"
• And lots of recent polls capture Americans' concerns about energy costs.

The bottom line: Prices — not the planet — are the tip of the spear right now for the environmental groups with the closest ties to Democrats.

👀 SpaceX's IPO filing offers a peek at its energy goals near and far.

• State of play: It discloses that its xAI unit plans to buy another $2 billion worth of "mobile gas turbines" for onsite data center power, and another $800 million of undefined turbines.
• Friction point: The company has faced criticism and litigation over pollution from its use of onsite turbines in Tennessee. H/t TechCrunch, which has more.
• Zoom (way) out: The filing for what's expected to be the largest-ever IPO talks up plans for solar-powered orbital data centers. It vows to harness the "only truly scalable solution to terrestrial energy constraints in the age of AI."

Speaking of IPOs, Deep Fission, which aims to develop small nuclear reactors deep underground, filed with the SEC yesterday for a $150 million public listing with a target valuation of up to $1.66 billion. Go deeper via Axios Pro

♨️ The governors of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico just launched the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium to drive deployment of the tech.

• Why it matters: It's way more than a photo op and press release — instead, there's real expertise, finance, private sector involvement, and coordination behind it.
• State of play: It's staffed by geothermal heads with the Center for Public Enterprise (CPE) and Constructive, a group of DOE alums that convenes stakeholders around common energy goals.
• Zoom in: CPE's Michael O'Connor, a former DOE geothermal aide, is directing the consortium. Geothermal startups, funders, and utilities are advising the group.
• What's next: The group will work on permitting, financing, stakeholder convenings and more. Go deeper via Heatmap, which broke the news ahead of yesterday's launch.

🔋 New U.S. battery energy storage installations climbed by nearly 10 gigawatt-hours in Q1, per new industry data.

• Why it matters: It's a record Q1 and a whopping 32% increase over the same period last year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

China's dominance of cleantech and mineral supply chains gets the headlines, but a new report flags energy risks of its outsized control of traditional metals production.

Why it matters: Specialty grades of steel, copper and aluminum are "indispensable to the power grid," a new report from the group Securing America's Future Energy states.

• It warns of a "profound strategic vulnerability" as U.S. production has eroded while state-subsidized Chinese output has surged.
• While the U.S. isn't a major importer of Chinese supplies, China's overcapacity has indirect effects in a "global market profoundly influenced by adversarial industrial polices."

What we're watching: The report offers a "roadmap to reindustrialization."

• It calls for Congress to boost funding for modernizing domestic production; increased recycling; creating a Federal Consortium for Advanced Metals; public-private initiatives to fill workforce gaps; and a lot more.

Full analysis

Antora Energy, a BlackRock-backed thermal batteries developer, is commissioning a 5 gigawatt-hour system for biofuels producer Poet in the startup's first commercial project, Axios Pro Deals first reported.

Why it matters: Antora is positioning itself as a cheap, ready-to-deploy alternative to years-long waits for natural gas turbines, grid interconnection approvals, and next-gen power sources like nuclear and geothermal.

Catch up quick: It's among a crop of companies using low-cost materials to make batteries that store heat instead of electrons, often for days at a time.

• These thermal batteries can then simply supply the heat, such as to make chemicals, plastics or biofuels, or convert it to electricity.

Driving the news: Antora this year started switching on its largest system, at a Poet bioprocessing facility in Big Stone City, South Dakota.

Unlock the whole story, and talk to our sales team about Axios Pro Deals for a steady diet of scoops and smart analysis

That's last week's record drawdown of U.S. crude oil inventories, a number that reflects both the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and industry stockpiles.

Why it matters: The decline in U.S. stockpiles as exports rise, and the wider depletion of global inventories, is bringing the fuel crunch closer to a crisis.

• It could also add pressure on the Trump administration to restrict exports, but to date, officials have firmly rejected the idea.