** Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and John Curtis (R-Utah) place holds on three Treasury Department nominees, escalating their fight against the Trump administration’s clampdown on wind and solar tax credit use.
** A Mississippi mayor confirms Elon Musk’s xAI company has purchased a defunct Duke Energy gas-fired power plant to provide energy to the company’s supercomputer in nearby Memphis.
** Tennessee Valley Authority officials say the federal utility is in a good financial position as it grows its revenue, pushes down its debt, and invests in new generation.
** The EIA says natural gas remains the largest source of hydrogen in its long-term projects which show that natural gas price is the most important factor outside of policy affecting the H2 market. Most of the growth in H2 consumption in the EIA’s projections comes from the transportation sector, predominately in heavy duty vehicles.
** The rate of load growth on the New England grid is increasing, according to utility Eversource, with demand in the company’s service territories growing in the second quarter at double the rate compared to the same period last year.
** Some neighbors of the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island worry about plans to restart operations there, as fears linger decades after the plant was the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.
** Exxon Mobil’s CEO muses about the possibility of purchasing other oil companies after buying Texas fracking giant Pioneer Natural Resources in 2023 but more recently failing to block Chevron’s $53 billion deal to buy Hess.
World
** Authorities in Iran ordered government offices and banks across much of the country to close Wednesday as surging summer temperatures and a worsening water crisis strain the power grid.
** Australia is considering setting a price floor to support critical minerals projects, including rare earths, Resources Minister Madeleine King said, in comments that led to a rally in share prices for Australian-listed rare earths miners.
** Researchers in Korea have developed a new design platform — and a staggering 12-megawatt-class blade to match — in an effort to put wind beneath the sails of its domestic production of wind power. The Wind Energy Research Department at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) set out to increase localization rates for wind turbine components, which stood at around 34%, according to WindTech International.
** U.S. President Donald Trump again threatened on Monday to raise tariffs on goods from India over its Russian oil purchases, while New Delhi called his attack “unjustified” and vowed to protect its economic interests, deepening the trade rift between the two countries.
** The Indian rupee extended its decline against the U.S. dollar on Monday, pressured by persistent foreign outflows and sustained dollar demand from importers, particularly state-run oil companies, traders and analysts said.