With overreliance on natural gas, a lack of storage capacity, and excessive centralization in Israel’s electricity sector, it could lead to disruptions within the country during critical moments.
Israel may find itself in the dark during times of crisis, according to a newly published study warning that the country could find itself without electricity at critical sites during wartime.
The study, led by Dr. Erez Cohen from the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science at Ariel University, points to a series of serious vulnerabilities in Israel’s energy system and points out that with overreliance on natural gas, lack of storage capacity, and excessive centralization in Israel’s electricity sector.
The researchers claimed that Israel’s overdependence could lead to severe disruptions under current conditions.
Cohen also examined the resilience of Israel’s energy sector in times of security emergencies through a quantitative analysis of production and consumption data, combined with a qualitative review of policies and regulations from 2018–2024, using the most recent Gaza war as a “case study.”
The findings, he said, show that the country is not prepared for prolonged disruptions.
According to the study, published in the scientific journal Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, Israel’s energy sector suffers from four main weaknesses.
View of an IDF tank in operation. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
What are four weaknesses plaguing Israel’s energy sector?
1. Overdependence on natural gas: About 70% of Israel’s electricity generation relies on offshore natural gas from the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields, which have no backup or strategic reserves. This dependency, Cohen argued, makes the system especially vulnerable to missile attacks, terrorism, or cyberattacks.
2. Supply-demand gap: The State Comptroller’s 2024 report warned that by 2026, there could be a shortage of natural gas for the electricity sector, potentially causing economic damage worth hundreds of millions of shekels.
3. Lack of storage capacity: Although Israel has reached roughly 12% of electricity generation from renewable energy sources, it has almost no storage systems to ensure supply continuity in times of crisis.
4. High centralization: The national grid remains highly centralized, so damage to a major power station or a single gas platform could cause widespread outages across the entire country.
Cohen describes an alarming scenario in which power, water, and hospital facilities could be left without energy during an emergency. “In the Gaza war, we saw how our dependence on natural gas made us vulnerable. Any malfunction or hit on a central facility could paralyze the entire economy at a critical moment,” he warned.
According to Cohen, solutions to this problem exist, but they require firm government action. He urged policymakers to move away from a centralized system that depends on a few offshore gas platforms and toward a more decentralized and flexible model.
“We need local microgrids that will allow critical areas, such as hospitals, water facilities, and remote communities, to keep operating even if the national grid collapses,” he said.
Cohen also stressed that Israel can no longer afford to delay investment in energy storage: “This isn’t an environmental luxury; it’s a national safety net. Without storage capacity, even renewable energy won’t save us in a moment of crisis.”
He emphasized that, alongside physical decentralization, Israel must establish a comprehensive digital and security defense network, and create a joint emergency coordination unit bringing together the defense establishment, the Energy Ministry, and the Cyber Authority to manage the electricity sector in real time during crises.
“We tend to think of electricity as a consumer product,” Cohen concluded, “but in reality, it’s a strategic weapon. And if we don’t ensure backup, storage, and decentralization, we may find ourselves in the dark, precisely when we need the light the most.”
Envinity Solar employees Josh Fisher, left, TJ Barnhart, Matt Hansen and John Delahanty install solar panels on the roof of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Robert Inglis/The Daily Item
Solar power is surging across the U.S. as costs plummet and companies ramp up large-scale commercial projects, but experts say the green industry faces an uncertain future as the Trump administration scraps federal subsidies that have helped foster growth of the clean energy sector.
Last year, more than 90% of all new U.S. electrical generating capacity came from renewable sources, with solar power accounting for more than 81% — the largest single-year increase from any energy source in two decades, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
CNHI News Service
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From left, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin smile after posing for a photo with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the background after a news conference at the Pump Station 1 on Monday, June 2, 2025, located near Deadhorse, Alaska, on the state’s prodigious North Slope. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Envinity Solar employees Josh Fisher, left, TJ Barnhart, Matt Hansen and John Delahanty install solar panels on the roof of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Solar power is surging across the U.S. as costs plummet and companies ramp up large-scale commercial projects, but experts say the green industry faces an uncertain future as the Trump administration scraps federal subsidies that have helped foster growth of the clean energy sector.
Last year, more than 90% of all new U.S. electrical generating capacity came from renewable sources, with solar power accounting for more than 81% — the largest single-year increase from any energy source in two decades, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
CNHI News Service
This page requires Javascript.
Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
From left, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin smile after posing for a photo with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the background after a news conference at the Pump Station 1 on Monday, June 2, 2025, located near Deadhorse, Alaska, on the state’s prodigious North Slope. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Envinity Solar employees Josh Fisher, left, TJ Barnhart, Matt Hansen and John Delahanty install solar panels on the roof of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Industries and individuals around the world burned record amounts of oil, gas and coal last year, releasing more greenhouse gases than ever before, a group of leading scientists said in a new report, warning that humanity is hurtling toward “climate chaos.”
The surge in global use of fossil fuels in 2024 contributed to extreme weather and devastating disasters including heat waves, storms, floods and wildfires.
“The planet’s vital signs are flashing red,” the scientists wrote in their annual report on the state of the climate. “The window to prevent the worst outcomes is rapidly closing.”
Some of the most alarming of Earth’s “vital signs,” the researchers said, include record heat in the oceans ravaging coral reefs, rapidly shrinking ice sheets and increasing losses of forests burned in fires around the world. They said the extreme intensity of Hurricane Melissa this week is another sign of how the altered climate is threatening lives and communities on an unprecedented scale.
“The climate crisis has reached a really dangerous stage,” said William Ripple, the report’s co-lead author and a professor at Oregon State University. “It is vital that we limit future warming as rapidly as possible.”
There is still time to limit the damage, Ripple said. It means switching to cleanly made electricity, clean transportation, fewer beef and dairy cows and other sources of harmful gases. These transitions are happening in some places, though not nearly fast enough.
For example, fossil fuel use actually fell in China in the first half of this year, a remarkable change for a country that remains the world’s biggest climate polluter. Renewable energy is being built out at a furious pace there, dwarfing installation in rest of the world. And in California, clean energy provided two-thirds of electricity in 2023.
Yet total use of fossil fuels rose 1.5% in 2024, the researchers said, citing data from the Energy Institute. Energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide and other planet-heating gases also reached an all-time high — exactly the opposite of what needs to be happening to address climate change.
The report notes that hotter temperatures are contributing to growing electricity demand.
“Avoiding every fraction of a degree of warming is critically important,” the scientists wrote. “We are entering a period where only bold, coordinated action can prevent catastrophic outcomes.”
The report, published Wednesday in the journal BioScience, is the sixth annual assessment that Ripple and his colleagues have compiled since they wrote a 2020 paper declaring a climate emergency — a statement that more than 15,800 scientists have signed in support.
The scientists said the current pace of warming greatly increases the risks of crossing dangerous climate tipping points, including vicious cycles such as the collapse of ice sheets, thawing of carbon-rich permafrost and widespread dieback of forests.
Ripple and his colleagues stressed that adopting solutions now to reduce emissions can swiftly bring benefits and that these solutions will be far less expensive than dealing with the consequences of uncontrolled climate change.
Efforts by President Trump and his administration to boost production of oil, gas and coal seriously threaten to slow the shift toward clean energy, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
He and co-author Peter Hotez argue in the recent book “Science Under Siege” that other nations must take on greater leadership now that the U.S. and other oil-promoting governments are working to block action on climate change.
“It’s a scandal that the U.S. is pulling back from any efforts to address environmental challenges,” said Peter Gleick, co-founder and senior fellow of the Pacific Institute, a think tank in Oakland. “The rest of the world should ignore efforts by the U.S. to delay progress on these problems … and I’m hopeful that other countries will continue to step up.”
The upcoming United Nations climate conference in Brazil in November could be a turning point if countries commit to bold and transformative changes, Ripple said.
Solutions must involve not only phasing out fossil fuels, the scientists said, but also addressing the fact that people are using up resources faster than nature can replenish them. Researchers, they noted, have estimated that two-thirds of the warming since 1990 is attributable to the wealthiest 10% of the world’s people because of “high-consumption lifestyles, high per capita fossil fuel use, and investments.”
The scientists called for changes including “reducing overconsumption” among the wealthy, protecting and restoring ecosystems, and shifting away from meat-heavy diets to more plant-based foods.
“It’s not just about cutting emissions. Dealing with climate change requires more,” Ripple said. “It calls for deep, systemic change in how societies value nature, design economies, consume resources and define progress.”
TOKYO—President Trump said Japanese auto giant Toyota is poised to invest $10 billion in auto plants in the U.S., coming as Tokyo released some details about the over half a trillion dollars it has pledged to invest in America as part of a trade deal.
Trump made the remark while addressing U.S. military personnel in Japan, saying that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told him of the carmaker’s plan.
As temperatures cool, home energy costs are heating up. According to a recent study, homeowners on average will pay nearly 8% more this winter. Tom Hanson reports from New Jersey, where the high prices are fueling political debate.
Physics can get real strange on the microscopic level. For tiny creatures living on this scale, these eccentricities are what allow them to thrive despite their size—including a worm that researchers dub as one of the “smallest, best jumpers in the world.”
For a recent paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers investigated the odd physics of a “worm-charging mechanism,” which enables S. carpocapsae, a parasitic roundworm, to jump onto aerial prey using static electricity.
When the tiny worm, or nematode, senses an insect flying above, it curls into a loop and leaps as high as 25 times its body length, the “equivalent of a human being jumping higher than a 10-story building,” according to the researchers. During the leap, they can rotate up to 1,000 times per second.
The parasitic worm species S. carpocapsae are fantastic jumpers. Credit: Victor Ortega-Jiménez/UC Berkeley/Emory University
“I believe these nematodes are some of the smallest, best jumpers in the world,” said Victor Ortega-Jiménez, study senior author and a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, in a release. “You might expect to find big discoveries in big animals, but the tiny ones also hold a lot of interesting secrets.”
“Using physics, we learned something new and interesting about an adaptive strategy in an organism,” added Ranjiangshang Ran, study co-lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at Emory University, in the release.
Static electricity in nature
Static electricity refers to the buildup of electric charge on a surface, which can lead to a quick, brief discharge when two surfaces are rubbed together. The team behind the new findings had previously conducted research on the role of static electricity, or electrostatics, in different survival strategies for wildlife.
For instance, ticks use the static electricity in an animal’s fur to levitate themselves into the animal, whereas spider webs electrostatically trap prey using similar principles. From this work, the researchers devised a method to control the electrical potential of tiny creatures, which enabled them to investigate the aerodynamics of nematodes.
A shocking hunter
For the experiment, the researchers noted how fruit flies—a common host for nematodes—generated hundreds of volts midair just by flapping their wings. To measure and control the exact voltage, the team glued tiny wires to the back of each fruit fly.
As for the nematodes, the team used moistened paper to create jump-inducing conditions for the worms, giving them a puff of air as “encouragement” before their leap, as the researchers noted in the press release. In some of the experiments, a tiny wind tunnel added a gentle breeze to the environment to replicate more natural conditions.
For the study, the researchers tracked the flow of electricity during a nematode’s leap toward a fruit fly. Credit: Victor Ortega-Jiménez/UC Berkeley/Emory University
The jumps were recorded using a special high-speed camera, which captured the microscopic trajectories of the worms at 10,000 frames per second. Then, the team ran computational algorithms on possible factors for calculating worm trajectory, such as the overall voltage, launching velocity, or drag force—typical metrics for flying objects.
They found that a fruit fly generating a few hundred volts got a jumping worm to create the opposite charge. This subsequently increased the chances of the worm successfully landing on its prey. Without electrostatics, however, only one out of 19 worm trajectories made it to the insect.
Worms are really cool
To be clear, worms risk a lot while jumping, as the act itself expends a lot of energy and puts them at risk of predation or drying out midair. This suggests that “without electrostatics, it would make no sense for this jumping predatory behavior to have evolved in these worms,” Ran explained.
That said, things take a macabre turn when the nematodes latch onto their target—at least from the perspective of the new host. After landing, the worms enter an insect’s body through any natural opening. Then, it releases symbiotic bacteria that quickly kill the host, usually within 48 hours. The parasite continues to feed on the bacteria and the host postmortem, laying eggs in the cadaver.
Morbid, yes. But, as the new findings show, it’s full of fascinating intersections between biology and physics!
The Danish wind turbine maker last year unveiled plans to build a new blade factory in Szczecin, near the Baltic Sea coast, to support Europe’s build-out of offshore wind parks.
Spain’s electricity-grid operator said there was no risk of an imminent second major blackout in the country after detecting two sharp voltage variations in recent weeks.
Red Electrica which operates Spain’s grid, and in which the Spanish government owns a 20% stake, said the recent voltage swings didn’t pose a risk to the supply of electricity because they didn’t surpass the acceptable limits.
Colorado has a new law declaring nuclear power a source of clean energy. The Denver airport might explore building a small nuclear reactor to meet the rising demand for electricity. Local business, civic and labor leaders see nuclear energy as the fuel of choice when Xcel Energy stops burning coal at its power plants in Pueblo County,
Is nuclear power becoming cool in Colorado?
The state has had only one nuclear power plant, Fort St. Vrain near Platteville. And it was converted to natural gas in 1989 after 10 years of technical problems. The former Rocky Flats weapons plant, which produced plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs, drew thousands of protesters for years to the site north of Denver, including such prominent activists as Daniel Ellsberg and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
Worry about the demand for electricity outstripping capacity and concerns about progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions led state Rep. Alex Valdez, a Denver Democrat, to back legislation this year that defines nuclear power as “clean.” He sponsored House Bill 25-1040, which added nuclear to the energy sources that utilities can use to meet state clean energy targets.
“As a kid, I grew up in the ’80s when a lot of talk about nuclear was in relation to the weaponry that was pointed at each other between the Soviet Union and the United States,” Valdez said. “I think I just kind of lumped nuclear into the same conversations as most people do: around its negative uses, less desirable uses.”
With some forecasts showing electricity demand rising dramatically, Valdez said the U.S. will have to add “a tremendous amount of energy” to the grid if it’s going to compete in quantum computing and other advanced technology.
A boom in data center construction driven by increasing the use of artificial intelligence is expected to escalate the need for more electricity generation.
Valdez, who spent most of his career in the renewable energy field, said the legislation he sponsored recognizes that the power generated by nuclear energy is carbon-free. “As we move toward our path to zero-carbon (energy), it can be included in the mix to get us there.”
Not ready for prime time
A lot of the current interest in nuclear power revolves around a new technology: small modular nuclear reactors, about one-tenth to one quarter the size of a conventional reactor. They’re billed as potentially less expensive, safer, easier to build and adaptable because modules can be added as more power is needed.
The technology is also still in the development and demonstration stage. Just a few are operating in China and Russia. No small modular reactors –SMRs– are in commercial use in the U.S.
“SMRs aren’t ready for prime time,” said Dennis Wamsted, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “You will hear from developers and others about the advantages. The advantages right now are all on paper.”
The institute focuses on research into the economics of expanding the use of renewable energy.
“We are not fans of nuclear power because it costs too much and that cost has been consistently high over the years. We see no track record of it declining,” Wamsted said. “We certainly don’t see that happening with a new class of reactor that nobody’s built before and nobody’s run before.”
Noah Rott, a spokesman for the western region of the Sierra Club, said the environmental group feels that discussion around nuclear energy “is largely a distraction as utilities work to address electric load growth in the next decade.”
“Cleaner sources like wind, solar, demand response, energy efficiency and storage are the answer here,” Rott said in an email.
The airport put the study on hold after complaints that city officials hadn’t talked to area residents first. The airport determined that a broader scope will best serve its interests and needs and will issue a request for information later this fall on multiple clean energy solutions, including reactors, after first receiving ideas and input from the community, spokeswoman Courtney Law said in an email Wednesday.
Nuclear power generation is the top choice of a local advisory committee for replacing coal at Xcel Energy’s Comanche power plants near Pueblo. Xcel has proposed tapping renewable energy, battery storage and natural gas when it stops burning coal by 2031.
But the Pueblo Innovative Energy Solutions Advisory Committee, established by Xcel and community members, said renewable energy facilities wouldn’t provide the same number of jobs and tax revenue for local governments that nuclear or gas facilities would. The committee is promoting installing SMRs.
Xcel Energy operates nuclear facilities in Minnesota and has said they’re not off the table for Colorado, but the new type of reactors likely won’t be commercially available when the utility has to replace its coal plants.
The Western Governors Association, WGA, held workshops in September at the Idaho National Laboratory, which focuses largely on nuclear energy.
The workshops were part of an initiative by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called “Energy Superabundance: Unlocking Prosperity in the West.” Cox, the WGA’s chairman this year, said the country is looking to the West for ways to meet the surge in need for more electricity.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Some community leaders want to see nuclear power replace coal-fired power when Xcel Energy quits burning coal at the Comanche power plant in Pueblo County. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Idaho Gov. Brad Little said during a workshop that the U.S. won’t meet its energy needs “with our legacy energy.”
“We’re going to have to have scalable, safe nuclear energy,” Little said.
While it could be five to 10 years before small reactors are up and running in the U.S., Mark Jensen, a chemistry professor at the Colorado School of Mines, said the federal government is more involved in promoting nuclear energy than in the recent past. He noted that the Department of Energy has opened federal sites to allow companies to test prototypes and that could help streamline development.
President Donald Trump has issued executive orders intended to invigorate the nuclear power industry and streamline regulations.
Jensen, director of the nuclear science and engineering program at the School of Mines, said more private money is flowing into nuclear projects than he has seen over the past 35 years.
Wind, solar the ‘workhorses’
Jack Waldorf, WGA executive director, said in an email that advancements in nuclear energy provide the opportunity to expand clean, reliable generation of electricity, but achieving true energy abundance will require a comprehensive approach.
Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that Colorado has a history as an innovator and nuclear energy should be no different. ” As projects become cost competitive and safer, we should view nuclear energy not as a competing energy source to wind and solar, but as a complementary solution for better overall reliability and lower costs.”
Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, agreed. He said as Colorado moves to more deeply cut emissions, other technologies will be needed and nuclear energy should certainly be in the mix.
“It’s pretty clear that wind and solar will be the workhorses of the grid just looking at the cost modeling,” Toor said. “You can build them relatively quickly and they’re so much cheaper than other resources.”
He expects nuclear power to be in a group of what he calls “clean, firm” energy sources: ones that emit low or no greenhouse gases and provide round-the-clock power. Toor said geothermal energy is likely the furthest along among those sources.
“The challenge with nuclear is really still the same challenge that it has been for utilities, which is the cost, how long it takes to build and the uncertainties of federal permitting,” Toor said.
He added that he would be surprised if Colorado utilities moved ahead with conventional nuclear or “to be first in line for the first-of-its-kind” small modular reactor.
“From the outset, the Global Gateway has been described as the European Union’s attempt to rival the Belt and Road Initiative’s overseas infrastructure investment funds. At €300 billion through 2027, however, it is a David-versus-Goliath-style undertaking,” says Gabriele Rosana, an associate fellow at the Institute of International Affairs in Rome. China has already been investing heavily in clean energy in Africa, and with far fewer constraints. “The Union is operating in a system of precise rules, stakes, and constraints unknown to Chinese centralism,” Rosana says.
According to a study from Griffith University in Australia, energy-related investments under the Belt and Road Initiative in the first half of 2025 were the highest they’ve been since 2013, when the initiative was launched—and it was Africa, with $39 billion, that had the highest-value contracts in this sector. A recent report from the energy think tank Ember revealed that China exported 15GW of solar panels to Africa in the year leading up to June 2025, a 60 percent year-on-year increase of such imports. It is not certain that all of these devices will be installed—some could be a trade triangulation to circumvent tariffs—but in any case, Beijing is positioning itself to take advantage of the continent’s green transition.
Europe, though, is committed to grasping this opportunity as well. “Over the past two years, competitiveness has gradually, but with increasing conviction, become the key word on the European policy agenda, along with defense,” says Rosana. “International cooperation has also been reinvented with a view to strategic autonomy, and put at the service of the Union’s global projection, at a time when, with the massive reorganization of trade balances due to the America-China challenge, Europe must rapidly diversify its supply chains and trade.”
The EU hasn’t been alone in feeling the need to respond to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Before President Donald Trump’s second term, the US had also felt compelled to act. In 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration announced an international infrastructure program, the Build Back Better World, which the following year was expanded to the G7 and renamed the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI). Among the PGI’s main areas of focus were energy and Africa: indeed, two solar power plants in Angola, a wind energy and storage system in Kenya, and a nickel processing plant for batteries in Tanzania appeared on the list of early US projects.
But perhaps the most important infrastructure project the West is pursuing in Africa is the Lobito Corridor, a railway line that will connect Zambia’s copper deposits and the DRC’s cobalt mines to the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola. Copper is the metal of electrification; lithium, a key ingredient in batteries—both are essential raw materials for the green transition, and China currently dominates the supply of both.
The African continent, then, is now a battleground between superpowers interested, first and foremost, in its resources. But with a young and growing population—in the sub-Saharan region, the population will grow by an estimated 79 percent over the next three decades—and an energy system dominated by fossil fuels, Africa’s decarbonization will be essential to the success of net zero. “The choices Africa makes today,” said Von der Leyen during the September announcement, “are shaping the future of the entire world.”
This story originally appeared onWIRED Italiaand has been translated from Italian.
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Surge of service — one lineman’s mission to keep the lights on
In the D.C. region, conversations often start with, “What do you do?” WTOP’s “Working Capital” series profiles the people whose jobs make the D.C. region run.
In Upper Marlboro, James Wells and fellow lineman Jennings Buckeler moved with quiet precision, like surgeons of the grid. The two threaded a new lifeline of electricity from the pole to the home, reconnecting a family to the power they’d lost. No words were needed as they clipped, wired, and tested before the house came alive again.
It’s dangerous work, climbing into the bucket of box truck in the worst weather and handling thousands of volts of electricity. But it’s a job that, in many cases, means the difference between life and death for those it helps. James Wells of Pepco is one of the unsung heroes who keeps the lights on for millions. Pepco serves nearly 900,000 customers in Maryland alone, making the work of linemen like Wells essential to everyday life.
“The joy I get from serving the community, powering the DMV area, it’s a humbling experience,” Wells said.
Wells grew up in Southern Maryland and said he’s known many people throughout his life who worked in the power industry. He never imagined becoming a lineman himself, but eight years ago, at age 23, he decided to give it a try and began working for Pepco.
“I haven’t looked back since,” Wells said.
He said what draws him to the work is not only the ability to help his community, but also the thrill of working with electricity, often high above the street and in the worst conditions.
“I feed off the adrenaline. This line of work suits me very well,” Wells said.
Getting to this point wasn’t easy. It took more than five years of training before he was given the keys to his own work truck and allowed to respond to calls without supervision.
While there is some classroom instruction, Wells said most of the training is on the job. And when dealing with high-voltage electricity, there’s no room for complacency.
“You’ve got to mentally prepare yourself for this line of work,” he said.
Though the adrenaline excites him, Wells said safety is always his top priority.
“When you’re coming up to a job, I mean before anything, you’ve got to make sure the scene’s safe, to yourself and the public,” he said.
So, for someone who enjoys the dangerous part of the job, what’s the biggest challenge? He joked that it’s the desk work.
“The most difficult part of the job is not actually doing the work, but the stuff behind the scenes that people don’t see,” Wells said.
It’s dangerous work, climbing into the bucket of box truck in the worst weather and handling thousands of volts of electricity.
(WTOP/Mike Murillo)
WTOP/Mike Murillo
But it’s a job that, in many cases, means the difference between life and death for those it helps.
(WTOP/Mike Murillo)
WTOP/Mike Murillo
Pepco linemen keep the lights on for millions.
(WTOP/Mike Murillo)
WTOP/Mike Murillo
Pepco serves nearly 900,000 customers in Maryland alone.
(WTOP/Mike Murillo)
WTOP/Mike Murillo
Linemen work hard to help their community.
(WTOP/Mike Murillo)
WTOP/Mike Murillo
“If you’re looking to get into this industry, it’s a great industry with a lot of opportunities, and you’ve got longevity,” Wells said.
(WTOP/Mike Murillo)
WTOP/Mike Murillo
As they work, Wells and Buckeler seem to be in sync, knowing without words what’s needed next in the repair process. Wells said that connection comes from the “brotherhood” at Pepco’s Forestville location, where he’s based.
“Everybody looks after everybody. A lot of senior guys are passing down knowledge to the younger generation,” he said.
Even when the weather is nice and power is stable in the D.C. region, Wells is still on call. Pepco line workers are often deployed to other states when storms or disasters strike and extra help is needed.
Wells has responded to emergencies in Chicago and New Jersey. While the work is rewarding, it’s also exhausting.
“A lot of long days and longer nights. You’re literally waking up, going to work for 16 hours, and then going back to a hotel to sleep,” he said.
Fortunately, Wells said he has a strong support system at home.
“People who know this line of work know that shift work is coming, and they’re always there for you, in your corner, no matter what, no matter the long hours,” he said.
Though he doesn’t speak directly about what’s next, Wells said he sees himself staying in the industry for the long haul. The combination of adrenaline, purpose, and community connection keeps him grounded in the work.
“If you’re looking to get into this industry, it’s a great industry with a lot of opportunities, and you’ve got longevity,” he said.
And there are perks, like the views from high above the ground. One of his favorite days on the job? The Fourth of July.
“You’re up in there working, and you see fireworks going off all around you. It makes you feel like you’re home away from home,” he said.
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Minneapolis police say one person has been treated for non-life-threatening injuries after he crashed a city-owned vehicle into a utility pole.
According to police, the crash happened near the intersection of 1st and University avenues northeast around 2:10 p.m. Friday. The driver, identified as a male, was taken to Hennepin Healthcare.
After the crash, police say a power outage was reported in the same area, and a stretch of 1st Avenue was closed for hours.
No word on what led up to the crash, which only involved one vehicle.
Americans will dish out more money to heat their homes this winter as electricity and natural gas costs continue to soar.
That’s according to a new study from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) which predicts thatAmericans will see their energy bill rise 7.6% to $976 on average this cold weather season. Those who rely on natural gas to heat their home could see an 8.4% jump in their bill, while those who use electricity could see a 10.2% increase.
While electricity prices vary by state, overall the cost is rising. In August, prices increased by 6.2% compared with the same month last year, according to the latest inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Those costs will continue to escalate as much as 18% in the next few years, according to a May report from The U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Natural gas prices are up 13.8% from last year, far outpacing the rate of inflation, which rose 2.9% in August on an annual basis.
Not all Americans will see an increase in their winter energy bills. Heating oil and propane users — roughly only 10% of U.S. households — could see their energy bills decrease by 4% and 5% respectively.
The overall rising home-heating costs follow greater summer air-conditioning use, amid warmer temperatures. “The average summer household electricity bill reached an estimated $776 in 2025, the highest in at least 12 years compounding household strain,” the report states.
“We had a period of relatively stable electric bills and then last year electricity went up twice the rate of inflation,” Mark Wolfe, executive director of NEADA, told CBS MoneyWatch.
As a result, more American households are falling behind on their energy bills.
Since Dec. 31, 2023, energy arrearages — unpaid energy bills that homeowners owe to their utility company — have risen by about 31%, from approximately $17.5 billion to $23.0 billion by June 30, 2025, NEADA said in its report.
The surge in energy arrearages comes as Americans are carrying record amounts of debt. With inflation continuing to ramp up the cost of daily living, ahead of wages, total household debt reached $18.39 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, with unpaid credit card balances exceeding $1.21 trillion.
Why are energy prices rising?
The main factors driving up energy prices is the ongoing high cost of maintaining and upgrading the grid, along with rising natural gas prices and increasing electricity demand from data centers according to the NEADA report.
“As demand goes up and supply is not matching that, prices are going to go up,” Abe Scarr, director of the Energy and Utilities Program at the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), told CBS MoneyWatch
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also created volatility in energy prices, government data shows.
So far this year, approximately 60 utility companies have either increased electricity and gas prices or proposed further increases, according to the Center for American Progress, a Washington D.C.-based think tank. With more rate hikes on the horizon, American households will have to try to stretch their income even further.
“Families just finished paying their high electric bills for the summer, and now they’re looking at high bills for the winter,” Wolfe said.
How to lower your utility bills
As winter approaches, what can Americans do to lower their utility bill?
Scarr suggests that people check with their utility companies, which often offer incentive programs to help customers implement cost-saving measures. Offerings vary by utility, but many companies provide free home energy assessments and discounts for people who want to insulate their homes.
For those interested in fortifying the envelope of their home to minimize heat loss, options include hiring a contractor for a professional retrofit or, for straightforward insulation projects, DIY tips, he said.
When it comes to general energy conservation, experts suggest unplugging small appliances or electronics when you’re not using them. While it might seem obvious, people can also turn down the temperature in the home a few degrees to save money, said Scarr.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), a federally funded initiative with a network of state-run programs, is another resource. LIHEAP provides financial assistance to help eligible low-income households cover energy costs.
Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. Before joining the business and finance vertical, she worked at “60 Minutes,” CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program.
For American families, costs are rising across the board.
Electrical bills are one example of where prices are climbing. These increases are not solely driven by inflation; they are also being fueled by the construction of massive data centers across the U.S.
Different states are responding to that reality in different ways, but some are looking for large tech companies to foot the bill for their own projects, the Associated Press reported.
What’s happening?
Massive data centers built by tech corporations like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are springing up across America.
Beyond traditional functions like providing websites for online shopping, this incredible explosion of computing power is being used for generative AI applications such as ChatGPT, which is many times more resource-intensive than an ordinary computer search.
The astronomical number of computer servers inside need an equally astronomical amount of electricity to run, putting the power demands of these facilities above those of entire cities such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or New Orleans, according to AP News.
To provide this power, electrical utilities are building new infrastructure, including power lines and power plants. Meanwhile, the same power companies are making special deals with these tech companies to capture their business and ensure that data centers are built in their area of operation — deals that involve paying lower rates for power.
Why is the power use of data centers important?
Theoretically, new users on the power grid should cover the cost of the infrastructure needed to serve them. However, in practice, ordinary ratepayers are footing the bill.
Monitoring Analytics, an independent organization monitoring the mid-Atlantic grid, found that 70% of last year’s increases were caused by increased demand from data centers, for example.
That means that everyday consumers — like you — are paying more because someone else is using more electricity. That’s on top of all the extra pollution being generated.
This increase is “something legislators have been hearing a lot about,” according to Charlotte Shuff of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a consumer advocacy group.
“It’s something we’ve been hearing a lot about,” she told AP News. “More people are speaking out at the public utility commission in the past year than I’ve ever seen before. There’s a massive outcry.”
What’s being done about rising utility rates?
For now, legislation that might keep this issue in check is still in the works in 16 states.
However, you can opt out of paying most of these fees by generating your own electricity with solar panels. You’ll also lower the amount of heat-trapping pollution produced to power your home.
If you want to avoid up-front purchase costs, check out solar leasing options like Palmetto’s LightReach program. If leasing isn’t for you, check out EnergySage to find vetted solar installers in your area and compare quotes.
If you’re not sure whether you want to buy or lease, Palmetto has a helpful breakdown of the pros and cons.
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
One of the biggest talking points of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign was to reverse the high inflation that peaked in 2022 under former President Joe Biden. Trump promised to reduce prices for groceries, cars and other consumer items.
Trump took a victory lap on prices during an Aug. 26 Cabinet meeting, calling out a few categories.
“Groceries are down. Energy is way down,” Trump said. “Was $4 and $5 for a gallon of gas.”
We looked at official government data and found that the cost of some grocery and energy products have gone down, but many have seen increases.
The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article.
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Food prices are up, with a few exceptions
For groceries, we examined standard price data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index. Taken as a whole, the cost of food has risen, but some individual items have fallen in price as others rose.
A measure for groceries, called food at home, rose by a small amount between December 2024 and July 2025 — just under 1%.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also separates price patterns for key types of food. A deeper dive into the grocery cart shows that some of these items became more expensive while others became cheaper.
These increases are over half a year. If these items’ prices continue to rise at the same rate over a full year, the percentage increase would double.
Energy prices overall are down, but electricity is up
The overall cost of energy is down, by about 2.6% on Trump’s watch. Energy is a broad field that includes fuel oil, propane, kerosene, firewood, electricity and energy services.
Many consumers have noticed that their monthly electricity bills are up, by 4.6%.
Gasoline prices, according to the Energy Information Administration, rose by just a few cents from $3.109 on Jan. 20, Trump’s inauguration day, to $3.147 on Aug. 25, the most recent data available when Trump spoke. (Gas prices are typically higher in the summer.)
Trump compares this with $4 or $5 per gallon gasoline, but the last time prices were that high was in 2022. Most, and most of the subsequent price decline came under Biden. Gasoline prices were below $4 per gallon for the final two and a half years of Biden’s presidency.
Trump “can point to successes in lowering inflation in some commodities; but there have been ‘failures’ in many other commodities,” said Gary Burtless, a Brookings Institution economist. “Overall, it’s hard to say that inflation is sharply or even moderately lower than it was in the late-Biden-administration era.”
Our ruling
Trump said, “Groceries are down. Energy is way down. … Was $4 and $5 for a gallon of gas.”
Some food items have seen a price decline on Trump’s watch, and overall energy prices have declined. But many items have increased in price.
Among the food items to rise in price between December 2024 and July 2025 are ground beef, bacon, other meats, coffee, dairy products and sugar and sweets.
As for energy, electricity costs have risen, and Trump’s comparison to $4 and $5 gasoline ignores that most of the price decline at the pump occurred under Biden.
This means these three values can’t be independent; if you know two of them, you can derive the third. How do physicists deal with this? We define the speed of light as exactly 299,792,458 meters per second. (How do we know it’s exact? Because we define a meter as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.) Then we measure the magnetic constant (μ0) and use that value along with the speed of light to calculate the electric constant (ε0).
Maybe that seems like cheating, but to even start doing actual science, at some point we have to make up arbitrary units and define some parameters. In fact, when you come down to it, all systems of measurement are made up, just like all words are made up.
Permeability of Free Space
Magnetic fields (represented by the symbol B) can be created by magnets, as shown in the photo up top. But because of that interdependence we talked about, they can also be made by moving electrical charges. (I’m using the shorthand term “charges” for charged particles, like electrons.) This is described by the Biot-Savart law:
You can see the magnetic constant (μ0) in there. We also have the value of the electric charge (q) moving with a certain velocity (v). So this says the magnetic field increases with the electric charge and decreases with the distance (r) from the moving charge—and the magnetic constant tells us precisely how much it varies.
Of course, we don’t deal with individual moving electrons very often. But we deal with streams of moving electrons all the time: That’s electric current, which we can measure. If we know the charge on the particles in coulombs, then the number of coulombs flowing per second gives us the current (I) in amperes. And we can write the equation above in terms of current: B = μ0I/(2πr).
It’s Everywhere
What this tells us is that electric current generates a magnetic field. This is used in all kinds of machines. For instance, it gives us electromagnets, where the magnetic force can be turned on and off to move metal objects in factories and scrapyards. It’s also how audio speakers create sound: An electric signal vibrates a magnetic driver, which generates pressure waves in the air.
Also magnetic fields influence electric currents. This is how motors work. There’s a current running through a coil of wire in the presence of a magnetic field that’s usually created with some permanent magnets. The force on the coil of wire causes it to turn, and there’s your motor. It could be a fan motor, part of your AC compressor, or the main drive for an electric car.
Wait! There’s more. Just as a changing electric field creates a magnetic field, a changing magnetic field creates an electric field—and that produces an electric current. This is how most of our power is generated. Some energy source—steam, wind, moving water, whatever—spins a turbine that rotates a coil within a magnetic field. The changing magnetic flux induces a voltage in the coil, converting mechanical energy into electrical energy that can be transmitted to your home.
Measuring the Magnetic Constant
How can we measure μ0? One method uses what’s called a current balance. A simple version of this has two parallel wires carrying electric current (I) in opposite directions, as shown in the diagram below. Then you suspend the two wires with strings so that they can move apart, like this:
The current in each wire creates a magnetic field at the location of the other wire, and this pushes them apart. As they move away, the magnetic force decreases and the horizontal component of the tension in the support string increases (because of the change in angle). Once these two forces are equal, the wires will be “balanced.”
If you know the value of the electric current and the distance between the wires (r), you can determine the magnetic constant, μ0. Then, as we showed above, you can use this value along with the defined speed of light to calculate the electric constant, ε0.
So yeah, all in all, you could say the magnetic constant is pretty important. Oh, and what is that constant value? According to the International Committee for Weights and Measures, μ0 = 1.256637061272 × 10–6 N/A2. No more, no less.
MOJAVE, Calif. — One of the largest solar and battery power plants in the United States is now supplying Los Angeles and Glendale from Kern County.
Local leaders and clean energy experts gathered Tuesday beneath a blazing desert sun to mark the initiation of full production from 1.36 million solar panels and 172 lithium iron phosphate batteries that make up the Eland solar-plus-storage electricity project. It’s as large as 13 Dodger stadiums, parking lots included, and will generate 7% of the electricity for all of the city of Los Angeles, much of it at a record-low price.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s biggest solar and battery storage plant, the Eland Solar and Storage Center in the Mojave Desert of Kern County on Nov. 25, 2024, near California City, Calif.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“This is the largest project for LADWP when it comes to solar and battery, and that is a huge accomplishment for us because it takes away the fear of doing more of these — and we need about 10 more of these to hit our goals,” said Janisse Quiñones, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The city has committed to 100% clean energy by 2035.
With Eland’s power now flowing through its grid, L.A. is nearly two-thirds of the way there: The project has pushed the city’s total supply to 64% clean energy, Quiñones said. Other sources of power in L.A.’s portfolio include hydrogen, natural gas, biomass, geothermal, nuclear and coal, which the city aims to decommission by the end of this year.
The $2-billion Eland project was developed by Arizona-based Arevon Energy and will also supply solar electricity to Glendale Water and Power.
While Eland’s sprawling solar panels are eye-catching, it’s the unassuming batteries — which look like rows of large white shipping containers — that are the real crux of the project.
Battery energy storage units at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s biggest solar and battery storage plant, the Eland Solar and Storage Center in the Mojave Desert of Kern County.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Locating batteries together with solar power or wind allows them to charge up on the clean energy, then feed it back to people’s homes after the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing. At the end of 2023, there were close to 469 such “hybrid” clean power plants in the U.S., according to a recent report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
In California, nearly every new solar project waiting to be connected to the electrical grid included batteries.
All scenarios for effectively addressing climate change call for using storage.
The Eland project is also coming online as the Trump administration is slowing the transition to clean energy with dozens of measures that favor electricity made from coal and natural gas. The president’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill ends federal tax credits for wind and solar within the next two years.
But in California and a number of other states where addressing climate change is mandated, the transition is likely to continue.
“I spent 12 years in D.C., and to be home, where this is not a controversy — there’s no controversy about climate goals and solar and renewables — it’s an exciting day,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told The Times.
Eland “represents a significant milestone toward reaching our climate goals, and it also just reinforces our stature of leading the country in terms of renewables and moving toward clean energy goals,” Bass said.
Kevin Smith, chief executive officer of Arevon, said solar paired with battery storage is currently the cheapest source of energy “with or without tax credits,” and the fastest to deliver to market. The Eland project took about two years to complete once the first shovel was in the ground, compared with nuclear or natural gas projects that can take several years longer, he said.
Smith also cited the sudden increase in forecast need for electricity for data centers. “If we don’t meet that demand, that means the AI future is going to be won by the Chinese, because they’re building more solar in a month than we build in a couple of years.”
Two-thirds of all the renewable energy installed globally in 2024 was in China, which strongly encourages the buildout.
In the U.S. now, such projects must either begin construction by next July or be placed into service by the end of 2027 in order to receive a federal tax credit.
But much of Eland’s success will depend on DWP, which has committed to a 25-year, $1.5-billion contract for its power, with options to buy the facility outright as soon as Year 10, according to company officials.
Eland marks DWP’s first utility-scale integrated solar and battery project. Its two facilities combined — the first phase opened last year — will generate 758 megawatts of solar power and store up to 1,200 megawatt-hours of energy, all of which can be dispatched during peak demand in the evening or nighttime.
DWP officials said Eland is the lowest-cost project in their portfolio, with the cost of generation and storage averaging about 4 cents per kilowatt hour. The energy is expected to be neutral or even a cost savings for ratepayers, company officials said.
Workers install solar panels for the Eland Solar and Storage Center in the Mojave Desert of Kern County.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
That’s partly because DWP was able to contract for the power prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing supply chain issues, and well before new market uncertainties related to tariffs, according to Quiñones.
Experts say such projects can’t come soon enough. Last year was Earth’s hottest on record, with rising global temperatures driven primarily by fossil fuel emissions. The Eland project alone is expected to avoid emissions equivalent to about 120,000 cars, according to company officials.
“When the City of Los Angeles first pursued renewable power some twenty years ago, it did so on moral grounds. It was ‘the right thing to do’ to reduce the City’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the nonprofit Climate Resolve, said in a statement. “Flash forward to today — and solar power is now the right thing to do economically, producing electricity at a cost lower than that of coal, natural gas and nuclear power.”
About 75% of the state’s energy on Tuesday came from renewables, according to the California Independent System Operator.
With Eland, DWP is well on track to meet its 100% clean energy goal by 2035, although Quiñones said the last 3% to 4% will be the most challenging.
But a project like Eland — the largest DWP has ever done — “demonstrates our commitment toward our renewable and clean energy transition,” Quiñones said. “We’re not backing down from that.”
