Energy on CrossGov.com

US Government Takes Equity Stakes in Critical Minerals Companies: How Washington's Approach Compares With China and the EU

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In July 2025 the Pentagon became a major shareholder in the company that runs America’s only operating rare earth mine. The Defense Department bought $400 million of MP Materials preferred stock at $30.03 a share, with warrants, added a $150 million loan, and promised two things a market investor never would: a ten-year price floor of $110 per kilogram for the company’s neodymium-praseodymium oxide, and a ten-year commitment to buy all the output of a new magnet plant.

Senate Permitting Deal S. 5653 Sets a 150-Day Lawsuit Clock and Makes Data Centres Pay for Their Grid Upgrades

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On 30 September the chairs and ranking members of the Senate’s two energy and environment committees introduced a bipartisan permitting bill: Republicans Shelley Moore Capito and Mike Lee, and Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, S. 5653, is aimed at the lame duck. Leaders want floor time in November. It needs 60 votes.

What it does

The bill touches most of the laws that slow big projects.

US Nuclear Push Gets a $120 Billion Korea Framework for AP1000s While the Palisades Restart Stalls on a Tipped Fuel Assembly

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On 30 September the US and South Korea announced a framework for up to $120 billion in Korean investment to finance eight large reactors on federal sites: six Westinghouse AP1000s in three two-unit plants, and two Korean-designed APR1400s. Korea would take a 5% to 10% stake in Westinghouse. The terms aren’t binding.

The same day, Holtec filed for permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to retrieve a fuel assembly that tipped over during fuel loading at the Palisades plant in Michigan on 30 August. The NRC noted “significant bowing” of the assembly. Fuel loading is paused, and there’s no new restart date for what was meant to be the first US reactor to come back after shutting down.

DOE Genesis Mission Picks 278 AI Science Projects as Data Center Deals Advance on Federal Land

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Department of Energy runs seventeen national laboratories and some of the fastest computers in the world. Since November 2025 it has also been running the federal government’s main bet on AI for science.

Executive Order 14363, signed on 24 November 2025, launched the Genesis Mission. It told the Energy Secretary to list at least twenty national science and technology challenges within 60 days, to find computing resources and data within 90 to 120 days, and to show an initial working version of a shared AI platform on at least one challenge within 270 days, which fell in late August 2026.

DOE's LNG Export Approvals Pass 18.6 Bcf a Day as US Supplies a Quarter of the World Market and the EU's $750 Billion Pledge Lags

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Department of Energy has approved more than 18.6 billion cubic feet a day of new liquefied natural gas exports to countries without a US free trade agreement since January 2025, according to its own tally in March 2026. That’s more new export capacity than any administration has authorised in a comparable period.

The approvals followed the end of a pause. In January 2024 the Biden administration had stopped new non-FTA export approvals while DOE studied their economic and climate effects. The new administration lifted the pause on 20 January 2025.

DOE's Office of Energy Dominance Financing Shifts Federal Energy Loans to Nuclear, Gas and the Grid

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On 5 October 2026 the Department of Energy offered Vistra a conditional loan of up to $4.2 billion to boost output at three nuclear plants, Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania and Davis-Besse and Perry in Ohio. The deal adds 433 megawatts and keeps about 4 gigawatts running for another twenty years. A month earlier DOE closed a $1.9 billion loan to NextEra to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa.

FERC Drops a National Data Centre Grid Rule for Six Regional Fights, With Grid Operator Filings Due November 16

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In October 2025 Energy Secretary Chris Wright used a rarely invoked power under the DOE Organization Act to direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider a national rule for connecting large electricity users, mainly data centres, to the transmission grid. He asked for a final rule by 30 April 2026.

FERC didn’t write one. On 18 June it instead ordered the six grid operators it regulates, PJM, MISO, SPP, CAISO, ISO New England and NYISO, to show why their rules for large loads are just and reasonable, or change them. It left the national rulemaking docket open. In August it gave the operators 90 more days, and ISO New England plans its tariff filing on 16 November.

DOE Emergency Orders Keep Coal Plants Open as a Court Rules Against the Campbell Order and FERC Delays Data Center Rules

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

J.H. Campbell is a 1,560-megawatt coal plant on Lake Michigan. Its owner, Consumers Energy, planned to close it in May 2025. On 23 May 2025, days before the date, the Department of Energy ordered it to keep running. It has been running on rolling 90-day orders ever since.

On 11 September 2026 the D.C. Circuit ruled 3 to 0 that DOE exceeded its authority in issuing that order. It’s the first appeals court ruling on DOE’s new use of emergency power over the grid, and it lands while DOE has a stack of similar orders in force.