Satellite images published by the investigative site Hunterbrook<\/a> showed workers building a bypass on Saudi Arabia\u2019s East-West Pipeline, its main conduit for circumventing oil exports around the Strait of Hormuz, to get around the pumping station damaged by a Houthi attack. But the promise of free movement through the Red Sea sent the price of oil down by between 1% and 4% on Thursday.<\/p>\n 2. Trump\u2019s move to gut endangered species protections draws a swift legal challenge<\/p>\n Just yesterday, I told you that<\/a> the Trump administration had moved to drastically change how the government interprets the Endangered Species Act to only consider deaths of protected animals illegal if the creatures were intentionally targeted. Such a shift would exclude the vast majority of deaths linked to energy companies, such as when birds land in toxic oil ponds or collide with wind turbines. Whether federal enforcement ultimately reflects that interpretation depends on the outcome of a forthcoming lawsuit. Already, Earthjustice has vowed to file litigation challenging the Trump administration\u2019s legal memo directing federal agencies on its new view of the nation\u2019s bedrock conservation law. \u201cThe government\u2019s new legal position is a prescription for extinction. It says that as long as you claim you didn\u2019t mean to kill an endangered species, the law can\u2019t and won\u2019t stop you,\u201d Earthjustice attorney Ben Levitan said in a press release<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous \u2014 and a totally illegal, active misreading of the Endangered Species Act. We\u2019ll see the Trump administration in court about this.\u201d<\/p>\n The toll wind turbines take on migratory birds is a favorite talking point of the energy source\u2019s opponents. But relief from the responsibility to avoid killing birds would be cold comfort to the wind industry as developers wait for the Trump administration to follow a court ruling requiring it to continue processing applications for turbines. As my colleague Jael Holzman wrote<\/a> yesterday, the administration has continued delaying. At least one other legal fight within the offshore wind industry has, meanwhile, come to a conclusion. Vineyard Wind and its turbine supplier GE Vernova, announced an \u201camicable settlement\u201d this week that resolves \u201call outstanding litigation,\u201d the New Bedford Light<\/a> reported. The developer sued the supplier in April, accusing GE Vernova of an $800 million breach of contract following a blade failure in 2024.<\/p>\n 3. Trump pumps the brakes on a controversial pumped hydro storage facility<\/p>\n The U.S. needs more long-term energy storage, and few technologies are better tested by time than using excess electricity to pump water into a reservoir, where it can be released downhill and run through turbines to generate huge bursts of power when it\u2019s needed. Back when the U.S. had lots of nuclear power, pumped hydro plants harvested the unused electrons during the night. With solar now producing more electricity during the day in some parts of the country than the grid demands, pumped hydro is seeing a potential renewal. But the U.S. hasn\u2019t built any pumped hydro facilities since the 1990s. A project that looked likely to break that dry spell is now on pause as the Trump administration heeds opponents\u2019 concerns and orders a new study on its environmental impact.<\/p>\n The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has delayed its decision on whether to license the $3 billion project to add a pumped hydro facility to the Seminoe Reservoir, a lightning bolt-shaped waterway in southern Wyoming. The Bureau of Land Management said it will conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement and open the door to more public comments and input from local officials. \u201cThis feels like a small victory,\u201d CiCi Oliver, a fly-fishing shop owner who opposed the project over its potential disruptions to the ecology of the reservoir, told WyoFile<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n Sign up to receive Heatmap AM in your inbox every morning:<\/p>\n 4. China\u2019s oil stockpiling bodes ill for Taiwan<\/p>\n At the start of the Iran War, some interpreters of President Donald Trump\u2019s supposed four-dimensional geopolitical chess moves suggested that shutting down the Strait of Hormuz was an intentional move to show China\u2019s vulnerable underbelly: Beijing\u2019s dependence on oil imports. And yet, China\u2019s vast oil stockpiles and refining capacity, plus its array of alternative energy sources, allowed the country to slash oil purchases by 23% in the first six months of the war compared to the same period last year, according to a New York Times<\/a> analysis of customs data. \u201cThis is a power that nobody thought China had,\u201d said Erica Downs, a senior research scholar at Columbia University\u2019s Center on Global Energy Policy. \u201cGoing forward, it\u2019s going to be really interesting to see: What does China do with this newfound power?\u201d The heaviest answer to that question now weighing on Western officials involves China considering the ramifications of a potential invasion of Taiwan to be less worrying than before.<\/p>\n That\u2019s especially true because Taiwan, by contrast, is more vulnerable to losing access to oil and gas imports than ever before. After completing its decades-long mission last year to shut down the nuclear fleet that powered the island\u2019s 20th century transformation into the world\u2019s premiere chipmaker, Taiwan\u2019s ruling Democratic Progressive Party \u2014 which advocates for the republic\u2019s continued de facto independence \u2014 left the nation dependent on imported liquified natural gas and crude for the vast majority of its energy. Now, according to Nikkei<\/a>, the government is hastening its efforts to potentially bring at least one nuclear station back online.<\/p>\n 5. Maryland\u2019s governor vows to ban data centers if the legislature passes a bill <\/p>\n Yet another state is considering a moratorium on data centers \u2014 one close to the epicenter of the artificial intelligence boom. Maryland, which shares a grid and a border with northern Virginia\u2019s data center megacluster, could see a ban come into effect as early as next year if state legislators pass a bill in the next session. Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, said he \u201cwill absolutely sign\u201d a statewide ban \u201cif it\u2019s coming from local legislators.\u201d Speaking to Punchbowl News<\/a>, he suggested that any moratorium would come with loopholes for projects that meet high standards. \u201cI believe local jurisdictions should have a say. There are certain local jurisdictions who want it,\u201d he said. \u201cI just need them to understand I have very strict guidelines for what is actually going to get state approval.\u201d <\/p>\n THE KICKER<\/p>\n A startup founded by members of the team of U.S. government scientists that first achieved net-energy gain from a fusion reaction has hit a new milestone that should raise the eyebrows of even skeptics of the so-called holy grail of clean power. Less than two months after publicizing its roadmap to commercial fusion, Inertia Enterprises ran a simulation demonstrating that its first commercial plant will be capable of producing 25 times more energy than the laser needed to trigger the reaction, the company told my colleague Katie Brigham<\/a> in an exclusive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Current conditions: Oman\u2019s Ayn Athum Waterfalls burst to life this week as rain battered the Gulf nation\u2019s southwestern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-620057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789740970_465_image.png\")