Two and a half hours outside Portland on the Oregon coast, almost 50 miles of cables sit under the turquoise Pacific waters. They connect to a vault underneath the parking lot of Driftwood Beach State Park, delivering power generated by waves to shore.

The vault, cables, a subsea pod, and wave testing devices are all part of PacWave, an Oregon State University test site that will be used by companies developing technology to convert energy from waves into electricity. The nearly completed site, which is partially funded by the Department of Energy, plans to host wave energy companies for two to three years while they generate power and test their devices. The goal is to host as many companies as possible to create a “convergence of technology”—something that wave energy has never had before.

“The ideas are all over the place,” PacWave’s director, Dan Hellin, told Tech Brew of the wave energy industry, “which is why we need a test site so people can test, prove, and the industry will come down to a handful of different designs that are shown to work.”

Keep reading here.—TC

Thanks to a barrage of executive orders during the first week of his second term, President Donald Trump aims to make good on his campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill” and reinstate some of his first-term climate policies.

Per the White House, Trump ushered through “hundreds” of policy actions via executive orders in the first 100 hours of his presidency. Some of his initial actions concern climate policy and how climate tech is deployed—and cancel many fossil fuel limits the Biden administration set forth.

Ixnay on the offshore ind-way: In one executive order, Trump put seven offshore wind leases on ice. The leases, involving projects off the East Coast, are currently considered withdrawn until further notice from the administration.

Trump also stalled any future leases that would place offshore wind farms on the outer continental shelf of the US—including areas in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the coasts of American states or territories.

“This withdrawal temporarily prevents consideration of any area in the OCS for any new or renewed wind energy leasing for the purposes of generation of electricity or any other such use derived from the use of wind,” the order stated.

Though the order made headlines, some wind power advocates told Canary Media that Trump’s actions were nothing more than a “scare tactic” and questioned whether they would even hold up, noting the “low success rate” of previous Trump executive orders.

Keep reading here.—TC

President Donald Trump put a vow to “end the insane electric vehicle mandate” at the forefront of his campaign (never mind that such a “mandate” doesn’t exist).

And come Inauguration Day, he wasted no time taking steps to fulfill that promise. The flurry of executive orders Trump signed in his first week back in the White House included numerous provisions to change the course of US transportation and climate policy.

“With less support, [EV adoption] will go slower,” Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility, told Tech Brew. “However, having said that, it doesn’t mean it’ll stop. Because consumers are the bigger part of this equation.”

Lights, camera, action: In a January 20 executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy,” Trump laid out a new policy “to eliminate the ‘electric vehicle (EV) mandate’ and promote true customer choice, which is essential for economic growth and innovation, by removing regulatory barriers to motor vehicle access; by ensuring a level regulatory playing field for consumer choice in vehicles; by terminating, where appropriate, state emissions waivers that function to limit sales of gasoline-powered automobiles; and by considering the elimination of unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies and effectively mandate their purchase by individuals, private businesses, and government entities alike by rendering other types of vehicles unaffordable.”

Keep reading here.—JG

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