Brightline thought a P&R in the desert wouldn’t fill trains & that they needed to bring the line over the Cajon Pass. However, removing Victor Valley would have required restarting environmental work. This would’ve been so costly it was cheaper to keep Victor Valley

High-speed rail system from Southern California to Las Vegas breaks ground

BLM advances large solar, power line projects in Arizona and Nevada ift.tt/9BrVgSZ

Another negative headline for offshore wind.

High interest rates and rising supply chain costs mean permitting reform is even more important than ever.

Will regulators be able to match Google, Microsoft, and the DOE's enthusiasm for geothermal? Or will bureaucratic barriers get in the way?

Matthew Zeitlin digs into it all below, with help from Aidan Mackenzie:
heatmap.news/politics/geoth…

This article from the London School of Economics is quite possibly the worst housing policy analysis I’ve ever seen.

What’s their magic solution that gets around the law of supply and demand?

Controversial opinion:

Six environmental reviews for one geothermal project is too many.

Can we drill holes fast and deep enough heatmap.news/politics/geoth…

And while we are doing all of that we do need more #cleanfirm generation. #Geothermal is ready to take off in the West while #nuclear power is ready for the same throughout the country

Other federal agencies should start thinking about how to use categorical exclusions from NEPA environmental review to make it easier to build in the US.

Here's some low-hanging fruit:

Department of Housing and Urban Development should update its categorical exclusion to cover office-to-residential conversions.

From last August, a useful background piece on the geothermal permitting issue, by Aidan Mackenzie: ifp.org/geothermal-ene…

This is a great step by the administration that should be applauded. However, we should be clear that it is a small step on the path to true, comprehensive permitting reform that is essential to meeting our clean energy goals. Let's take the W and keep hustling.

To be clear, would still be good for Congress to pass this bipartisan geothermal bill.

But glad to see the executive branch doing what it can in the meantime.

Huge permitting reform news:

The Bureau of Land Management is giving geothermal energy exploration a categorical exclusion from environmental review under NEPA.

If you care about clean energy abundance, this is a massive win.

This is maybe the most important thing that happened today.