TODAY in Heatmap AM:
🛢️ Oil prices jump as Iran War ceasefire crumbles
🔖 Trump’s billion dollar deal with TotalEnergies “worthless” to taxpayers, document shows
💊 Eli Lilly joins nuclear energy rush
Start your week with the latest from @alexckaufman.bsky.social:
heatmap.news/am/scotus-st...
In Heatmap AM today:
🌬️ SunZia, the largest U.S. renewable project ever, comes online
🛶 Senate votes to open Minnesota Boundary Waters to mining
↩️ Energy Department brings back DAC, funding two hubs
Cap off your week with the low-down from @alexckaufman.bsky.social:
heatmap.news/am/sunzia-wi...
Chicago startup making moves to deploy a new type of fuel in existing nuclear reactors in Canada, India, Korea, Romania, and China.
It will extend the life of fuel bundles, decreasing refueling outages and improving opex. Awesome stuff!
Sunrise Wind is the 2nd offshore wind farm to power New York, after South Fork Wind. The state’s 3rd, Empire Wind 1, is also expected to enter the turbine installation stage soon, as the construction vessel, Maersk Viridis, is currently en route to the US.
www.offshorewind.biz/2026/04/17/f...
SCOOP for @heatmap.news: The democratic world's leading effort to commercialize thorium energy just took a big step forward.
Clean Core Thorium Energy has inked a deal with the Canadian National Labs to produce its first commercial products.
heatmap.news/energy/clean...
The nonprofit that runs the successful, Pulitzer-winning Baltimore Banner is going to take over the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Of all the possible outcomes here, this is likely the best we could have hoped for.
apnews.com/article/pitt...
![In the days of tavern dining, proprietors would have wanted customers to fill up on as much bread as possible, so that they would consume less of the more expensive ingredients to which they were entitled. À la carte restaurants perhaps felt themselves grandfathered into what had become a mark of hospitality. Chefs I consult attest to free bread’s ability—a finite ability—to make kitchens run more smoothly (by slowing down orders). It also makes customers less whiny: Restaurants give you free bread “just so that you have something to do with your hands and your mouth,” Richard Horner, a New Orleans chef and restaurateur, tells me.
Horner lays bare the strategic timing of this generosity. Ideally, free bread should not hit the table until after customers have ordered their meal, “because then they order from a position of maximum hungriness,” he says. Plus, the delay builds anticipation: “Will there be bread? I see other people with bread. We haven’t got bread yet.” And then, once the bread is bestowed: “Oh! There is bread! What a fun surprise.”
Horner’s demonic calculation for how many slices or rolls each table’s basket should contain is [Number of diners] + 1. Unevenly divisible bread creates “a tension that I really enjoy.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jxtnw3qiuq4wtx7sggjbbvi3/bafkreicedzvam3gcswshjbifdqnbzsdsa54htt2deghal4rt7gpf5d2a3e)
In the days of tavern dining, proprietors would have wanted customers to fill up on as much bread as possible, so that they would consume less of the more expensive ingredients to which they were entitled. À la carte restaurants perhaps felt themselves grandfathered into what had become a mark of hospitality. Chefs I consult attest to free bread’s ability—a finite ability—to make kitchens run more smoothly (by slowing down orders). It also makes customers less whiny: Restaurants give you free bread “just so that you have something to do with your hands and your mouth,” Richard Horner, a New Orleans chef and restaurateur, tells me. Horner lays bare the strategic timing of this generosity. Ideally, free bread should not hit the table until after customers have ordered their meal, “because then they order from a position of maximum hungriness,” he says. Plus, the delay builds anticipation: “Will there be bread? I see other people with bread. We haven’t got bread yet.” And then, once the bread is bestowed: “Oh! There is bread! What a fun surprise.” Horner’s demonic calculation for how many slices or rolls each table’s basket should contain is [Number of diners] + 1. Unevenly divisible bread creates “a tension that I really enjoy.”
My god www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
In today’s Heatmap AM:
🚢 Trump threatens to blockade the Strait of Hormuz
🇭🇺 Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary could disrupt nuclear project
🧊 Argentina modifies glacier protection law to promote mining
Start your week with the latest from @alexckaufman.bsky.social:
heatmap.news/am/trump-hor...
Deforestation in Indonesia surged 66% from 2024 to 2025, when more than 433,000 hectares were lost, according to the NGO Auriga Nusantara.
The country reached historic low deforestation in 2021, when around 230,000 hectares were cleared. By Hans Nicholas Jong for @mongabay.com:
New Jersey just became the second state this year to lift its moratorium on new nuclear plants. Not that a new plant is super likely any time soon: www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuc... via @alexckaufman.bsky.social
How much water lies beneath our feet? After years of research, scientists have an answer, and a new, detailed national map of groundwater.
I spoke with @reedh2o.bsky.social of @princeton.edu and Laura Condon of @uarizona.bsky.social about their fascinating research: www.latimes.com/environment/...
In Friday’s Heatmap AM:
🗳️Clean energy supporters win control of Arizona’s biggest utility
💰Iran War has cost Americans $17 billion on gas
💧Scientists at Princeton map out U.S. groundwater
Conclude your week with the latest from
@alexckaufman.bsky.social:
Along the shores of the shrinking Salton Sea, desert winds regularly kick up dust and send it drifting through nearby neighborhoods. New research indicates that children who live close to the lake have diminished lung development compared with kids farther away. www.latimes.com/science/stor...
NEW in Heatmap AM:
☢️ New Jersey repeals moratorium on new nuclear reactors
🇧🇷 Brazil adds BYD to its “dirty list” for poor labor conditions
🤝 Two deep-sea mining firms merge to form $1B giant
Read @alexckaufman.bsky.social for all the latest:
heatmap.news/am/new-jerse...
New exclusive up on @heatmap.news this morning:
Energy Vault has pivoted from long-duration storage to just storage in general. Now the Swiss-Californian company is making a bid for the Japanese market at just the moment when East Asia is in an energy crisis.
heatmap.news/sparks/energ...
Wow, China's coal-to-chemicals sector is bigger than the entire U.S. coal industry.
Today in Heatmap AM:
⏱️ Trump’s deadline to bomb Iran’s power plants approaches
💵 White House budget continues war on renewables
⏩ U.S. plastics manufacturers are in overdrive
Read up on the latest from @alexckaufman.bsky.social:
heatmap.news/am/iran-powe...
Heatmap AM’s top stories:
🏭 Trump renews threat to bomb Iran’s power plants
🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi aluminum producer may need a year to recover
🌬️ Brazil takes steps to develop offshore wind industry
Get your week started with the latest from @alexckaufman.bsky.social:
heatmap.news/sparks/trump...
:)
When you get a pitch on a new biofuels idea that doesn’t actually bring down costs or emissions and can’t scale.
In Friday’s Heatmap AM:
💧 EPA vows to lower microplastic levels in drinking water
🚫 Maine bill would freeze data center construction
⬆️ Gas turbine prices up almost 200% since 2019
Close out your week with all this news and more from @alexckaufman.bsky.social:
heatmap.news/am/maine-dat...
CEO Yanai Yedvab told me the company will release that "in the coming months." That gradual unveiling may agitate some critics who feel the bar for earning public trust is so high it demands extraordinary transparency.
The papers don't answer perhaps the biggest question skeptics have about Stardust: What is the particle?
The consensus on what was once broadly considered (and still is by many) a dystopian Pandora's box has shifted in recent years, with more scientists and environment groups embracing the need to at least study the technology.
I got an exclusive first look at both documents for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/science/2026...
Now it's looking to sell the rest of us. Today Stardust is putting out two papers — one, a detailed statement of ethics and principles; the other a technical explanation of how it believes its technology could be safely tested — meant to start a public conversation about its role in geoengineering.
SCOOP: Stardust Solutions, the U.S.-Israeli geoengineering startup, is making the world's most significant attempt at establishing a commercial enterprise for spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere to cool the planet. The company sold investors, raising $60 million last year. 🧵
She turns one this Saturday. Oh the wonders she will see.
May the greatest achievements of our civilization lie ahead of us, forged of peace, in her curious hands. 🇺🇸
