** This week, Ford Motor Company reported that it lost $5.1 billion on its EV business in 2024. During the fourth quarter, it incurred $1.4 billion in operating losses on its EV segment. That was a slightly better result than the fourth quarter of 2023, when the company lost $1.6 billion on EVs.
** Arizona’s largest utilities team up to explore the feasibility of developing new small modular and conventional nuclear reactors in the state, including at retiring coal plants.
** A firm seeks Wyoming regulators’ approval of a proposed 46,000 acre wind project to power a planned hydrogen production facility.
** Hawaii lawmakers advance “green fee” legislation that would increase hotel room taxes to help pay for climate change mitigation and resilience projects.
** The Trump administration terminates the fledgling and underfunded Biden-era American Climate Corps, but independent programs under it will continue largely unaffected.
** Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity is critical of President Trump’s executive order to re-open even more Alaskan lands to oil and gas extraction than during his first term. “The executive order is a wish list of every devastating extraction project the Trump Administration could think of,” said Freeman.
** A Minnesota GOP Congress member reintroduces legislation to overturn a 20-year ban the Biden administration imposed near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and to return two key leases to a company mining for nickel and copper in the area.
** A slew of health and environmental groups are suing the Bureau of Land Management over its approval of permits for new oil and gas drilling on Central California’s public lands – which is home to some of the country’s most polluted cities.
World
** Volkswagen has teased plans for a “China-killer” electric vehicle (EV) that will cost just €20,000 (£16,700) as the German carmaker gears up to take on a flood of Beijing-backed low-cost rivals. The company shared its first images of a new vehicle expected to be called the ID.1, which will go into production from 2027.
** Norway is on track to be the first all-electric vehicle country. Last year, 88.9% of all new cars sold were EVs, according to the BBC. These stats are a far cry from the U.S., where only 8% of car sales were EVs in 2024, as reported by Reuters.
** In an effort to move away from dirty energy, Air New Zealand made its largest purchase of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for its 2025 supply. According to Renewable Energy Magazine, Neste, a producer of sustainable aviation fuel, is supplying Air New Zealand with 23,000 tons of fuel.
** Britain’s Labour government said changes to planning laws will speed up the country’s rollout of mini-nuclear reactors aimed at providing cheaper and cleaner energy.
** Estonia, along with fellow Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania, is counting down the days to finally ridding itself of one of the last vestiges of 50 years of Soviet occupation: an electricity grid controlled by Russia.
