** The U.S. Department of Transportation has scrapped a rule mandating speed-limiting devices or “governors” on heavy-duty trucks, allowing them to race along the nation’s highways at top speed. Their requirement is now being dropped as part of a new DOT package intended to ease conditions for long-haul truckers.
** The U.S. Department of Energy this week made conditional selections for Westinghouse and Radiant to perform the first tests in the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) facility at Idaho National Laboratory. The DOME experiments will be the first of their kind in the world and will fast-track the deployment of American microreactor technologies to keep pace with the nation’s demand for more abundant, affordable, and reliable power.
**The Northwest’s only commercial nuclear power plant reconnected to the electric grid Sunday morning after a short shutdown, just in time to power air conditioners during a heat wave forecast for parts of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The Columbia Generating Station came back from its biennial refueling outage on June 16 after the nuclear reactor was shut down for 65 days.
** The board of directors at ConocoPhillips elected Kathleen McGinty, a former vice president of the environmental activism group, Environmental Defense Fund, to be a board member. She is the current vice president for Johnson Controls.
** The founder of an electric vehicle charging hardware company said the tax breaks and spending cuts bill that passed the Senate takes away some of the tools American companies need to compete against Chinese counterparts .
** Duke Energy in Indiana might backtrack on plans to retire two aging coal plants in the state after reaching a settlement with Reliable Energy Inc. The nearly 60-year old plans might continue operating and be sold to a third party.
** Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed into law a bill that will remake California’s landmark environmental protection rules, an overhaul that he says is essential to address the state’s housing shortage and resulting homelessness crisis.
** U.S. coal production during the first quarter of 2025 totaled 132.3 million short tons (MMst), which was 3.4% higher than the previous quarter and 1.9% higher than the first quarter of 2024. First-quarter 2025 U.S. coal exports (24.4 MMst) decreased 11.8% from the fourth-quarter 2024 level and decreased 8.9% from the first-quarter 2024 level.
World
** At least 36 people have been confirmed dead after a powerful explosion triggered a fire at a pharmaceutical factory in the southern Indian state of Telangana.
** Venezuela might be close to losing Citgo Petroleum following a U.S. court auction of bidding in company shares. Creditors hope to get payment for some outstanding Venezuelan debt. The auction of the seventh largest U.S. refiner was organized by a court in response to a case Crystallex, based out of Canada, brought eight years ago against Venezuela.
** Katherina Reiche, Germany’s Economy Minister, said that the German government had lowered its gas supply security grade to an early warning level from alarm as supply bottlenecks have eased. Berlin declared alert in June 2022 after Russia’s invasion.
** The Ugandan energy ministry announced on Tuesday that Uganda will begin requiring fuel distributors to mix locally produced ethanol with all petrol sold within the country in January next year. This could help reduce the nation’s oil import bill.
** According to a government official and a presentation, Pakistan is looking for ways to sell surplus liquefied gas (LNG). This could result in losses of $378 million per year to domestic producers. A second official confirmed that the country imports LNG from Qatar, but has three cargoes left over. It has no immediate need for them, so it is selling them at steep discounts.