Climate, in brief

The US Energy Department offered $10.1 billion in loans to two power companies this week. [1]

Its lender, the Office of Energy Dominance Financing, was the Loan Programs Office under Biden. [1]

Both loans could pay to upgrade power plants that already exist, Utility Dive reports. [1]

Alliant says each project it builds must still go through its regulators. [3]

Next to watch is whether Constellation signs the final loan papers, and for which plants. [1]

Why the interest on a loan sets the price of solar and nuclear power

A solar farm or a nuclear upgrade costs almost everything before it makes any power

Its owner borrows most of that money and pays it back over decades

Sunlight is free and nuclear fuel is cheap, so repaying the loan is most of what the plant spends each year

That cost is spread across every unit of power the plant sells

So a lower interest rate means cheaper power, and a higher rate means dearer power

For solar and nuclear power the fuel is cheap, so most of the price of their electricity is paying back the loan that built them.

Alliant's own estimate of what cheaper government loans save its customers over 30 years.

Alliant says the US government's lower-interest 30-year loans save its customers up to $1.2 billion, because less of each bill goes to lenders.

Prices are near the lowest at which a solar project can still borrow, and Europe's average rose partly because borrowing got dearer.

Development banks lent $217 million of the $271 million first stage, so most of its cost is a loan repaid from power sales.

A Guardian analysis says new wind farms may be slowed until prices fall, which probably needs cheaper borrowing for their builders.

A cheap government loan is not free: if the project fails, taxpayers can lose the money.

Families in Iowa and Wisconsin will repay these loans through their power bills for 30 years.

The US government is lending 10.1 billion dollars cheaply to two power companies, and much of the nuclear power it pays for is already sold to Google, Amazon and Meta. [1][4]

A savings figure of 1.2 billion dollars sounds like a finding, but it is Alliant's own estimate of its own loan. [3]

They have already bought most of the extra nuclear power, and a cheaper loan lowers the cost of making it. [4]

The loan could lower its financing costs for upgrades it had already agreed with the tech companies. [4]

Whether home power bills fall because of the US loans.

Alliant expects up to 1.2 billion dollars of savings, but TechCrunch found no evidence the extra nuclear power lowers home bills, and Constellation would not back the US government's claim. [3][4]

How many reactors Constellation will upgrade.

Canary Media reports 15 reactors at 8 plants, while TechCrunch says Constellation plans to uprate 11, and the company says it has not decided on every plant. [2][4]

Europe's main gas price passed 100 euros a megawatt-hour on Wednesday afternoon. [5]

It was last that high in December 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine. [5]

Before the Iran war began in late February, the price was about 32 euros. [5]

The war has cut off most gas shipped from Qatar, a big supplier. [5]

EU gas stores were 75% full on 21 October, against a usual 90% target. [5]

The EU's energy chief, Dan Jorgensen, said Europe faces another energy crisis this winter. [5]

The US now supplies about 30% of the EU's gas. [5]

In Europe the Iran war has pushed gas past 100 euros, and the EU and Britain are reaching for more gas while Britain cuts money for heat pumps. [5][11][9]

With Qatar's gas cut off by the war, the US now supplies about 30% of the EU's gas. [5]

Fuel bills are skyrocketing, the EU's energy chief said, as gas passed 100 euros. [5]

Whether Europe's gas will last the winter.

EU stores were 75% full on 21 October against a usual 90% target, and Europe will compete with Asia for spare gas ships. [5]

The EU spent 27.6 billion euros a month on oil imports from April to June. [6]

In 2025 it spent 17.7 billion euros a month, for almost the same amount of oil. [6]

The amount of oil it bought rose only 1.2%. [6]

So the EU paid about 9.9 billion euros more each month for the same oil. [6]

About 20% of the world's oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025. [6]

With that route cut, the price had to rise, an economist at Dundee University says. [6]

The World Bank, which lends to poorer countries, says energy prices will rise 32% this year. [7]

The forecast is in the bank's latest Commodity Markets Outlook. [7]

It expects Brent, the main world oil price, to average 91 dollars, up from 69. [7]

Brent was trading near 115 dollars on Wednesday. [7]

World oil supply will fall 5.2% this year, the biggest drop since the 1980s. [7]

It expects Europe's gas prices to jump almost 60%, as buyers compete for Middle East gas. [7]

It has given 8.7 billion dollars to 25 countries hurt by the Iran war. [7]

Cyclone Arnab came ashore in Andhra Pradesh, on India's east coast, early on Wednesday. [16]

Its winds were about 130 kilometres an hour at landfall. [16]

It killed 3 people and flooded about 200,000 acres of farmland, officials said. [17]

About 89,000 people had been moved from the coast before it hit. [18]

Unusually warm sea water helped the storm grow fast, a former weather chief said. [17]

It came after India's weakest summer monsoon rains since 2015. [17]

Full damage counts will take days or weeks, AP reports. [17]

Cyclone Arnab flooded about 200,000 acres of farmland. [17]

How much damage Cyclone Arnab did.

Officials counted three deaths and about 200,000 acres of flooded farmland, and AP says full estimates will take days or weeks. [17]

Britain's Budget cut 1 billion pounds from its plan to warm homes. [9]

Chancellor John Healey moved the money to help pay for defence. [9]

The plan pays for heat pumps, solar panels and insulation. [9]

Grants for heat pumps, which heat homes with electricity, fall by about 800 million pounds. [9]

Analysts say that could mean about 100,000 fewer heat pumps over three years. [9]

A day earlier it opened low- or zero-interest loans of 7,500 to 35,000 pounds for this. [9]

Home solar and batteries pay no VAT, a sales tax, now, but 5% from April 2027. [19]

Analysts expect about 100,000 fewer heat pumps over three years after the grant cut. [9]

How much Britain really cut from its warm homes plan.

The Budget names a 1 billion pound cut, but analysts told Carbon Brief the plan could shrink from 15 billion to as little as 9 billion. [9]

The Budget cut 200 million pounds for carbon capture and 500 million for hydrogen. [9]

Carbon capture traps a factory's carbon dioxide and buries it underground. [9]

The carbon capture cut falls on Acorn, a planned project in north-east Scotland. [9]

A planned charge on gas bills for hydrogen will now come from taxes instead. [9]

It will back only clean power projects that lower bills and easily connect to the grid. [9]

A Guardian analysis reads that as slowing new offshore wind farms until prices fall. [20]

That probably needs cheaper borrowing for the wind farm builders, the analysis adds. [20]

A Guardian analysis says new wind farms may be slowed until prices fall, which probably needs cheaper borrowing for their builders.

Britain's Budget says power from public car chargers will carry 20% VAT, a sales tax. [9]

The rule takes effect on 1 November. [9]

Charging at home carries a lower rate of VAT. [9]

Courts had ruled the gap unlawful earlier this year, says ChargeUK, a charging industry group. [9]

ChargeUK says the rule will do serious damage to the switch to electric cars. [9]

Britain's government will spend 100 million pounds to cut prices at local chargers. [9]

It says that saves drivers about 150 pounds a year on average. [9]

Environmental Defense Fund, a US campaign group, studied the 184 coal plants still running. [13]

It found the Trump administration has helped 90 of them keep going. [13]

70 got exemptions from limits on mercury and other toxic metals. [13]

Six were ordered to keep running when their owners wanted to close them. [13]

Keeping those six open cost customers up to 593 million dollars by June. [13]

It puts the health damage from those six at up to 860 million dollars. [13]

They were excused from limits on mercury and other toxic metals instead of paying for cleaner equipment. [13]

Keeping the plants open against their owners' plans cost them up to 593 million dollars by June. [13]

Consumers Energy, a Michigan power company, has spent 303 million dollars running a coal plant. [21]

The 1,420-megawatt Campbell plant was due to close in May 2025. [21]

The US Energy Department ordered it to keep running, and it still runs. [21]

The 303 million is what is left after 344 million dollars of power sales. [21]

A federal appeals court ruled in September that the first order was invalid. [21]

Consumers will ask FERC, the US energy regulator, to let it recover the full 303 million. [21]

The EU says the Nord Stream pipeline will not bring Russian gas, even after the war. [22]

Nord Stream runs more than 1,200 kilometres under the Baltic Sea, from Russia to Germany. [22]

It was pushing back at a reported US and Russian plan to restart it. [22]

An EU law ends all Russian gas imports by the end of 2027. [22]

Russia's share of EU pipeline gas fell from about 40% in 2021 to 6% in 2025. [22]

Much of it was replaced by dearer gas shipped from the US. [22]

The EU and Canada will study long-term shipments of Canadian gas to Europe. [11]

The plan is in a draft statement for their summit in Montreal on Thursday and Friday. [11]

The gas would be chilled into liquid, called LNG, and carried by ship. [11]

Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, backs doubling LNG exports from Canada's west coast. [11]

The draft does not say how much gas, at what price, or by when. [11]

A climate group, CAN Europe, called it a dangerous distraction from clean power. [11]

Tanzania announced its first big gas find in more than 10 years. [10]

It is planning a 42 billion dollar project to ship the gas abroad as LNG. [23]

Africa imports most of its fuel, so the Middle East war hit it hard. [10]

Western lenders had refused to fund gas there, saying it would lock countries into fossil fuels. [23]

The Trump administration has pushed the World Bank to lend for new gas wells. [23]

A Nigerian gas company boss says investors are calling, as his coast has no narrow straits. [23]

Investors who once kept away now call, because the war made gas from routes with no narrow straits look safer. [23]

Sharjah, one of the seven UAE emirates, closed all its beaches on Wednesday. [24]

Oil from a damaged tanker had already shut beaches in two other emirates. [24]

Shipping agencies say the tanker, Gem No 2, was hit in a suspected Iranian drone attack. [24]

Its 22 Indian sailors were rescued at the time, in early October. [24]

Fishermen have been told to keep out of the affected waters. [24]

Keeping oil off the coast is the top priority, experts told The National. [24]

They have been told to keep out of waters fouled by the tanker's oil. [24]

Britain promised poorer countries 11.6 billion pounds of climate aid from 2021 to 2026. [12]

It says it met that goal, and records show it spent 12.8 billion. [25]

But 2.1 billion came from relabelling money it was already spending, Carbon Brief found. [12]

That included its general funding for development banks, and aid to Afghanistan and Sudan. [12]

Without the changes it would have reached 10.7 billion, 924 million pounds short. [12]

Its next goal is about 2 billion pounds a year, half of last year's 4 billion. [12]

Relabelling 2.1 billion pounds of existing spending let it say it met its climate aid goal. [12]

Without relabelling, Britain's aid would have been 924 million pounds short, and its next goal halves to about 2 billion a year. [12]

China's clean-energy exports this year are on track to avoid 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. [26]

That is about what Brazil emits in a year, an analysis for Carbon Brief finds. [26]

The exports are solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles. [26]

Shipments of electric cars and lorries grew 61%, and wind turbines 45%. [26]

Batteries grew 39% and solar 22%, from January to September. [26]

About 76% of the lifetime savings come in poorer countries of the global south. [26]

Many panels land on grids that burn lots of fossil fuel, so each cuts more. [26]

China's exports of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles this year are on track to avoid about 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, roughly what Brazil emits in a year.

Labour MPs are lobbying Britain's prime minister not to overrule the energy secretary on Rosebank. [27]

Rosebank is an oilfield waiting for Britain's government to grant environmental permission. [27]

Sources say Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh leans towards refusing it. [27]

Her aides sent MPs a memo calling her the only decision maker. [27]

The Budget's official forecasts already assume Rosebank will be approved. [9]

Labour MP Catherine Fookes said approval would 'blow a hole in our green credentials'. [27]

Who decides Rosebank.

The energy secretary's aides say she is the only decision maker, yet the Budget's official forecasts already assume the field is approved. [27][9]

At least 300,000 people in parts of the Himalayas live where floods could reach them. [28]

Building in risky zones of Nepal, Tibet and northern India grew 45% from 2016 to 2023. [28]

Near lakes made by melting glaciers, it grew almost 78%. [28]

Such lakes can burst, sending floods down the valleys. [28]

The study, in Scientific Reports, was done before August's floods killed over 1,400 in Nepal. [28]

The Himalayas are warming about twice as fast as the rest of the world. [28]