GLOBALVARS
0
Current conditions: New England is bracing for a series of severe thunderstorms this afternoon with the potential to cause widespread damage from winds and flooding • A firefighting helicopter crashed while battling Colorado’s Gold Mountain Fire, killing the pilot • Temperatures in Delhi, India, are nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit today.
THE TOP FIVE
1. The UAE is planning a new port to bypass the Strait of Hormuz
Dubai is planning to build a new port and container terminal on the United Arab Emirates’ east coast in a bid to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz and neuter Iran’s ability to leverage its control of the waterway toward geopolitical ends. On Monday, the Financial Times reported that DP World, the logistics giant and port operator based in the glitzy Emirati megacity, was working on a new port in the coastal area of Fujairah. The company’s Jebel Ali hub, located near the contested maritime route, has long served as “Dubai’s crown jewel.” But the newspaper said “shifting some of the port’s capacity outside Dubai marks a seismic change for the emirate, which has established itself as a global trade and finance hub partly off the back of Jebel Ali’s growth.” After all, activity at the port nosedived by as much as 95% after the United States and Israel began bombing Iran in February.
Meanwhile, the war appears to be back on. After resuming mutual attacks last week, President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. would reinstate its blockade of Iran’s ports. “The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network.
2. The U.S. has 74 gigawatts of nuclear projects proposed
With the world’s largest fleet of nuclear reactors, the U.S. has the capacity to pump out about 97 gigawatts of atomic energy. If every project now waiting in the pipeline goes forward, the country could nearly double that total capacity. A new analysis by the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank, found that the U.S. has 74 gigawatts of projects in various stages of development. “While it is unlikely that all of that capacity will ultimately be built, if even a fraction of it is deployed it would mark a historic turnaround for the U.S. nuclear industry,” Joy Jiang, an analyst at the Breakthrough Institute who authored the paper, wrote in a blog post. And more appears to be coming: New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed a bill Monday that creates a new procurement process for building a new nuclear plant in the state.
In Belgium, meanwhile, the government just approved nearly $12.5 million in funding for eight nuclear energy research projects as Prime Minister Bart De Wever seeks to reverse his country’s previous phaseout policy. On Monday, NucNet reported that the government wanted to restore nuclear power to its “rightful place” in the Belgian energy mix.
3. America’s leading electrical workers’ union clocks a new membership record
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, or IBEW, added a record 30,000 new members so far this year, up from 24,000 a year ago. The milestone, announced Monday in a post on X, highlights a looming challenge for Democrats who are embracing the populist wing of the party’s calls for a moratorium on data center construction, no doubt a large part of what’s led to the recent hiring boom. “The building trades unions that the left’s major decarbonization agenda revolves around putting to work are further alienated by data center rejection (instead of regulation),” Fred Stafford, the pseudonymous socialist energy researcher and Heatmap contributor, wrote in a post on X. Still, the political dynamics are hard to pass up for left-wing candidates and advocacy groups. As Semafor reporter David Weigel wrote on X, moderates worry that coming out against a data center will activate opposition spending from the AI industry’s political action committees. “No such worries on the left, which wasn’t getting that money,” he wrote.
Sign up to receive Heatmap AM in your inbox every morning:
* indicates required
Email Address *Our Privacy Policy & Terms Apply.
4. Turkey tees up 2.4 gigawatts of new solar and wind
Turkey is building its first nuclear plant and billions of dollars of new hydroelectric dams. But that doesn’t mean wind and solar don’t have a part. On Monday, Renewables Now reported that, over the weekend, the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources published announcements for nearly two dozen renewable energy tenders scheduled for this year, with a target of deploying 2.4 gigawatts of new projects.
5. Climate tech is back with a vengeance
Shortly after the 2024 presidential election, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham declared “the death of ‘climate tech.’” By that, she meant that the incoming Trump administration would kibosh use of that two-word phrase to describe next-generation technologies that could generate power without emissions or reduce the impacts of global warming in other ways. But the sector is mounting quite a comeback. In the first half of this year, the global climate tech sector notched its busiest six months on record. A Bloomberg write-up of a new analysis by the market research firm Currence identified 153 transactions in the first half of 2026. That’s an eye-popping 70% hike from the same period last year.
THE KICKER
It’s been 36 years since the signing of the Americans with Disability Act, yet the country remains tragically inaccessible to people who use wheelchairs, walkers, and canes. (For a disturbing account of just how bad things are in the nation’s largest city, listen to this old “This American Life” episode about lawyer and advocate Britney Wilson’s struggle to use Access-a-Ride, New York City’s para-transit provider.) It’s a problem Tesla aims to change. The auto giant is building a wheelchair-accessible self-driving taxi. But Electrek cautioned that Tesla “gave no timeline, no vehicle, and no details, and it’s not clear the ‘active product’ is anything more than the Robovan it unveiled nearly two years ago.” Nevertheless, I’d welcome its entry to the roads.
