** EV battery recycling company Li-Cycle files for bankruptcy, putting up for sale an operation that includes a massive unfinished recycling center in western New York and five satellite battery shredding facilities.
** Meyer Burger lays off as many as 350 employees at its solar panel assembly facility that opened last year in Goodyear, Arizona.
** The second-largest crane ship in the world, standing 473 feet high, arrives in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay en route to the site of the Empire Wind project, where it will be used to install the monopile foundations for the wind farm’s 54 turbines.
** The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid operator for most of the state, is increasingly curtailing solar- and wind-powered electricity generation as it balances supply and demand amidst rapid renewables capacity growth. In 2024, CAISO curtailed 3.4 million megawatthours (MWh) of utility-scale wind and solar output, a 29% increase from the amount of electricity curtailed in 2023.
** Wisconsin regulators approve We Energies’ plan to invest about $1.5 billion in new gas plants to offset coal plant closures and meet rising demand from data centers.
** Amazon suspends plans for a large data center in Minnesota after state lawmakers agreed to eliminate a sales tax exemption on electricity to power the facilities.
** Wyoming officials say injecting carbon dioxide into aging oil and gas wells boosts production, but developing necessary infrastructure can be cost-prohibitive.
** Texas lawmakers pass legislation to require oil and gas wells be plugged after 15 years of inactivity, rather than allowing companies to avoid the roughly $30,000 cost of capping wells indefinitely and often leaving the cost to state regulators.
World
** This week, a private arbitration panel in London began hearing the arguments of U.S. supermajors ExxonMobil and Chevron regarding their rights to one of the world’s most lucrative oil projects in Guyana.
** The Chilean state copper commission Cochilco increased its average copper forecast for this and next year on Wednesday. It cited an improved outlook globally following a pause between the United States’ and China’s tariff war. The commission raised its average price forecast for 2025 and 2026 from $4.25 per pound in its previous report to $4.30.
