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Originally published on the NRDC Expert Blog.

The Biden administration’s 2022 budget released on Friday includes major funding increases for important Department of Energy (DOE) programs to drive clean energy innovation, address the climate crisis, and build a strong and equitable economy. These funding increases complement the investments proposed in the President’s American Jobs Plan (AJP). Now it’s up to Congress to pass AJP and write a government funding bill that reflects the President’s proposals.

Below are five components of the budget that would accelerate clean energy innovation and redirect DOE programs toward our greatest challenges and opportunities.

1. Historic Funding Increases for Clean Energy

The budget includes $4.7 billion in regular-year funding for DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), a $2 billion (or 65%) increase from 2021. EERE houses the agency’s efforts focused on heavy industry, building decarbonization, clean transportation technologies, and renewable power. These programs are underfunded relative to the need for investment and the opportunity to build out domestic clean energy industries. The administration’s budget would give these programs a much-needed funding boost.

The budget also ramps up funding for other clean energy programs at DOE and establishes a new Advanced Research Projects Agency — Climate with initial funding of $500 million, of which $200 million is at DOE.

2. Demonstrations & Deployment to Round Out the Innovation Portfolio

The budget emphasizes funding for demonstration projects and deployment of climate solutions, a welcome pivot from the Trump DOE’s narrow focus on early-stage research and development. The new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, funded at $400 million, fills a critical gap in DOE’s efforts to commercialize newer, better clean energy technologies, reduce costs, and address barriers to widespread deployment. The $300 million for Build Back Better Challenge grants will help bring the benefits of clean energy to more communities. And the focus throughout the budget on research, development, demonstrations, and deployment will better equip DOE to accelerate clean energy innovation at the scale necessary.

3. Bringing Clean Energy to More Communities

DOE should play a critical role ensuring that more communities see the benefits of technologies like renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles. Strong community engagement practices and funding for clean energy projects to benefit low-income, pollution-burdened, and energy transition communities and communities of color can help DOE meet these goals.

The budget includes several new programs to bring clean energy to more communities. For example, it proposes to prioritize the new Build Back Better Challenge grants for marginalized, overburdened, and energy transition communities. It also appears to expand the Weatherization Assistance Program — one of the only existing efforts focused on low-income communities — to enable more households to access funding for cost- and energy-saving retrofits, though the details on the expanded program are not yet clear.

The budget also indicates that EERE’s goal is to accelerate a just, equitable clean energy transition. This explicit focus, while just a start, is an important shift. Historically, EERE and most other offices at DOE have not been designed to support equity and environmental and energy justice.

4. Procurement and Funding to Decarbonize Heavy Industry

Technologies to clean up industrial facilities like steel mills and cement plants are critical to addressing the climate crisis. But these sectors have long been a major gap in DOE innovation efforts. The budget acknowledges that decarbonizing heavy industry should be a focus for both EERE and the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. This focus is a great first step toward building out a strong federal industrial sector program. As Congress turns the President’s proposals into a detailed appropriations bill, we hope to see large funding increases for the Advanced Manufacturing Office, funding for large-scale demonstrations at industrial facilities, and support for DOE to expand its heavy industry efforts to include electrification, hydrogen, circular economy measures, novel processes, and carbon capture and storage.

The budget also includes more details on the industrial-sector decarbonization efforts proposed in the American Jobs Plan, including, notably, funding to procure low-carbon materials. The federal government is a top purchaser of industrial products like steel and cement for the construction of roads, bridges, buildings and other projects. Government procurement is thus a critical lever in creating early markets and sustained demand for cleaner materials, alongside direct investments to help ensure U.S. industry is making the cleanest products on the market.

To better leverage procurement to drive innovation, the federal government should support efforts to create a reporting system that helps manufacturers account for all the carbon associated with producing a range of industrial products, and require that all construction projects receiving federal funds take climate pollution and labor protection into account when awarding contracts. We urge Congress to include funding in the FY22 budget for the federal government to support these priorities. Doing so will ensure we capture the significant emissions reduction opportunities associated with switching to lower-carbon materials in projects funded by the American Jobs Plan.

5. Support for State, Local, and Tribal Governments

Action from states and municipal governments is critical to meeting our climate goals; increasing clean energy; and driving adoption of innovative technologies, policies, and business models. Federal funding is necessary to support states and cities in these endeavors, but current programs lack the budget to meaningfully support them.

The budget proposes several new programs to support states and cities, including Build Back Better Challenge grants for states and a new Local Government Energy Program. The success of these programs will depend on the details, but it is promising to see new efforts to support states and cities in the budget. Moreover, these programs build on the block grant funding proposed in the American Jobs Plan to provide an influx of support for states to advance clean energy, building electrification, and efficiency.

The budget also includes funding increases to support tribal nations to advance clean energy. Households on tribal lands lack access to electricity at extremely high rates and often face high costs to connect to the electricity grid. The budget proposes a six-fold increase in funding for the Office of Indian Energy (a $100 million increase) to support American Indian and Alaskan Native nations, including to help address energy access and energy poverty.

Federal clean energy programs have already helped foster a revolution in technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle batteries. Now, we have an opportunity to accelerate clean energy innovation to improve, demonstrate, and deploy the technologies and strategies we need to combat the climate crisis. With the right funding and policies, we can do so in a way that creates strong economic growth rooted in the industries of the future, addresses inequalities in our energy and economic systems, and cuts pollution in places that have borne the brunt of it in the past. President Biden’s energy budget is a major step toward realizing these goals, and Congress should pass a government funding bill that incorporates these proposals and brings the benefits of clean energy to communities across the country.


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China installs the world’s most powerful wind turbine

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China installs the world's most powerful wind turbine

China’s Dongfang Electric has installed a 26-megawatt offshore wind turbine, snatching the title of world’s most powerful from Siemens Gamesa’s 21.5 turbine in Denmark.

Photo: Dongfang Electric Corporation

The Chinese state-owned manufacturer announced today that it has installed the world’s most powerful wind turbine prototype at a testing and certification base. This turbine, the world’s largest for capacity and size, boasts a blade wheel diameter of more than 310 meters (1,107 feet) and a hub height of 185 meters (607 feet). Dongfang shipped the turbine’s nacelle earlier this month – the world’s heaviest – along with three blades.

This offshore wind turbine is designed for areas with wind speeds of 8 meters per second and above. With average winds of 10 meters per second, just one of these giants can generate 100 GWh of power annually, which is enough to power 55,000 homes. That’s enough to cut standard coal consumption by 30,000 tons and reduce CO2 emissions by 80,000 tons. Dongfang says it’s wind resistant up to 17 (200 km/h) on the extended Beaufort scale.

In May, Dongfang said it had completed static load testing on the turbine’s blades, and the turbine is now undergoing fatigue testing, which could take up to a year before the turbine is fully certified.

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Read more: Trump just killed all offshore wind zones as US power needs surge


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John Deere joins the robot revolution with GUSS acquisition

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John Deere joins the robot revolution with GUSS acquisition

The autonomous ag equipment experts behind the GUSS robotic sprayers have been developing their AI tech as part of a JV with John Deere for years — and now, that marriage is official. John Deere has acquired 100% of GUSS, and has big plans to pick up that tech and run with it like a … well, you know.

The latest battery-powered GUSS autonomous sprayer made its debut at the 2024 World Ag Expo show in Tulare, California, last summer, where executives from Deere called it, “the world’s first and only fully electric autonomous herbicide orchard sprayer.”

Since then, interest in automated ag equipment has only grown — fueled not just by rising demand for affordable food and produce, but by a national labor shortage made worse by the Trump Administration’s tough anti-immigration policies as well. It’s specifically those challenges around labor availability, input costs, and crop protection that GUSS and John Deere have been spending millions to address.

“Fully integrating GUSS into the John Deere portfolio is a continuation of our dedication to serving high-value crop customers with advanced, scalable technologies to help them do more with less,” explains Julien Le Vely, director, Production Systems, High Value & Small Acre Crops, at John Deere. “GUSS brings a proven solution to a fast-growing segment of agriculture, and its team has a deep understanding of customer needs in orchards and vineyards. We’re excited to have them fully part of the John Deere team.”

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About GUSS


GUSS autonomous farm sprayer; via John Deere.
GUSS autonomous farm sprayer; via John Deere.

The GUSS electric sprayer is powered by a Kreisel Battery Pack 63 (KBP63), which has a nominal energy capacity of 63 kWh, enabling the machine to operate for 10-12 continuous hours between overnight (L2) charges.

The GUSS electric sprayers feature the Smart Apply weed detection system that measures chlorophyll in the various plants it encounters, identifying weeds embedded among the crops, and only sprays where weeds are detected. The company claims its weed detecting tech significantly reduces the amount of chemicals being sprayed onto farmers’ crops, resulting in “up to 90% savings” in sprayed material.

John Deere’s deep pockets will support GUSS as it continues to expand its global reach, and help the group to accelerate Smart Apply’s innovation and integration with other John Deere precision agriculture technologies.

“Joining John Deere enables us to tap into their unmatched innovative capabilities in precision agriculture technologies to bring our solutions to more growers around the world,” says Gary Thompson, GUSS’ COO. “Our team is passionate about helping high-value crop growers increase their efficiency and productivity in their operations, and together with John Deere, we will have the ability to have an even greater impact.”

GUSS-brand autonomous sprayers will be sold and serviced exclusively through John Deere dealers, and the GUSS business will retain its name, branding, employees, and independent manufacturing facility in Kingsburg, California.

More than 250 GUSS machines have been deployed globally, having sprayed more than 2.6 million acres over 500,000 autonomous hours of operation.

Electrek’s Take


John Deere and GUSS Automation Unveil Electric Option and Smart Apply Upgrade

Population growth, while slowing, is still very much a thing – and fewer and fewer people seem to be willing to do the work of growing the food that more and more people need to eat and live. This autonomous tech multiplies the efforts of the farmers that do show up for work every day, and the fact that it’s more sustainable from both a fuel perspective and a toxic chemical perspective makes GUSS a winner.

SOURCE I IMAGES: John Deere.


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Tesla asks court to throw out $243 million verdict in fatal Autopilot crash case

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Tesla asks court to throw out 3 million verdict in fatal Autopilot crash case

Lawyers for Tesla filed a motion asking a court to throw out a recent $243 million verdict against the company related to a fatal crash in Florida in 2019. The case is the first instance of Tesla being ruled against by a court in an Autopilot liability case – previous cases had ended up settled out of court.

To catch up, the case in question is the $243 million Autopilot wrongful death case which concluded early this month. It was the first actual trial verdict against the company in an Autopilot wrongful death case – not counting previous out-of-court settlements.

The case centered around a 2019 crash of a Model S in Florida, where the driver dropped his phone and while he was picking it up, the Model S drove through a stop sign at a T-intersection, crashing into a parked Chevy Tahoe which then struck two pedestrians, killing one and seriously injuring the other.

Tesla was also caught withholding data in the case, which is not a good look.

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In the end, for the purposes of compensatory damages, the driver was found 67% responsible and Tesla was found 33% responsible. But Tesla was also slapped with $200 million in punitive damages. The plaintiffs reached a settlement with the driver separately.

Tesla said at the time that it planned to appeal the case, and its first move in that respect happened today, with lawyers for Tesla filing a 71-page motion laying out the problems they had with the trial.

In it, Tesla requests either that the previous verdict be thrown out, that the amount of damages be reduced or eliminated, or that the case go to a new trial, based on what Tesla contends were numerous errors of law during the trial.

The table of contents of Tesla’s filing lays out the company’s rough arguments for why it’s requesting the verdict to be thrown out, with Tesla seeming to throw several arguments at the wall to see what sticks:

  • I. Tesla Is Entitled to Judgment as a Matter of Law (or at Least a New Trial) on Liability.
    • A. The Verdict Is Unsupported by Reliable Expert Evidence.
    • B. Plaintiffs’ Design-Defect Theories Fail as a Matter of Law.
      • 1. Tesla’s 2019 Model S Was Not Defective.
      • 2. McGee Was the Sole Cause of Plaintiffs’ Injuries.
    • C. The Failure-to-Warn Claim Fails as a Matter of Law.
      • 1. Tesla Had No Duty to Warn.
      • 2. Tesla Provided Extensive Warnings.
      • 3. The Asserted Failure to Warn Didn’t Cause the Crash.
    • D. Tesla Is Entitled to a New Trial If the Record Cannot Sustain the Verdict as to Any Theory on Which the Jury Was Instructed.
  • II. Highly Prejudicial Evidentiary Errors Warrant a New Trial on All Issues.
    • A. The Improper Admission of Data-Related Evidence Prejudiced Tesla.
    • B. The Improper Admission of Elon Musk’s Statements Prejudiced Tesla.
    • C. The Improper Admission of Dissimilar Accidents Prejudiced Tesla.
  • III. This Court Should Grant Tesla Judgment as a Matter of Law on Punitive Damages or at Least Significantly Reduce Punitive Damages.
    • A. Florida Law Prohibits the Imposition of Any Punitive Damages in This Case.
    • B. Florida Law Caps Punitive Damages at Three Times the Compensatory Damages Actually Awarded Against Tesla.
    • C. The Due Process Clause Limits Punitive Damages Here to No More Than the Net Award of Compensatory Damages.
      • 1. Tesla’s Conduct Was Not Reprehensible.
      • 2. A Substantial Disparity Exists Between the $200 Million Award of Punitive Damages and the $42.3 Million Award of Compensatory Damages.
      • 3. Comparable Civil Penalties Do Not Justify the Punitive-Damages Award.
  • IV. This Court Should Reduce the Grossly Excessive Award of Compensatory Damages to No More Than $69 Million.

In short, Tesla blames the driver (who was found 67% liable) fully for the crash, says that the Model S and its Autopilot system were state-of-the-art and not defective because “no car in the world at the time” could have avoided the accident, that it provided proper warnings even though it didn’t need to, that evidence was improperly admitted to prejudice the jury against Tesla, and that the punitive damages are excessive.

After looking through the document, Tesla’s main contention seems to be with the admission of various evidence that it says prejudiced the jury against Tesla.

Indeed, the only exhibit attached to the filing is a transcript of a podcast episode where one of plaintiffs’ experts talks about evidence that Tesla withheld data, which Tesla says should have been inadmissible and prejudiced the jury against it.

The plaintiffs repeatedly asserted that Tesla had deliberately withheld or tried to delete data, which required them to bring in third party experts to discover and examine the data.

Tesla says that the only reason these arguments were brought into court was to make the jury feel like there was a coverup, even though Tesla claims that there was no coverup. By repeatedly mentioning this, Tesla says the jury had a more negative view of the company than was fair.

It also says that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s statements about Autopilot shouldn’t have been admissible, and that they prejudiced the jury against Tesla. Tesla says that the statements by Musk shown at the trial were irrelevant to plaintiffs’ case, exceeded the limits the court had set on which statements would be admissible, and that the admission of these statements “would disincentivize companies from making visionary projections about anticipated technological breakthroughs.”

You can read through the full filing here.

Update: After this story was published, plaintiffs’ attorneys reached out with their own statement

“This motion is the latest example of Tesla and Musk’s complete disregard for the human cost of their defective technology. The jury heard all the facts and came to the right conclusion that this was a case of shared responsibility, but that does not discount the integral role Autopilot and the company’s misrepresentations of its capabilities played in the crash that killed Naibel and permanently injured Dillon. We are confident the court will uphold this verdict, which serves not as an indictment of the autonomous vehicle industry, but of Tesla’s reckless and unsafe development and deployment of its Autopilot system.”  

Brett Schreiber of Singleton Schreiber, lead trial counsel for plaintiffs Dillon Angulo & Naibel Benavides.

Electrek’s Take

Reading through the filing is persuasive at first, but remember that this is only one side of the story – and Tesla is well-known for never budging an inch in legal or reputational matters. (Update: for a quick reaction from “the other side,” see the statement by plaintiffs’ attorneys directly above).

Thinking a little deeper, the filing does rely on a similar “puffery” argument which Tesla has used before. The idea here is that Musk’s statements should be ignored because he, as the CEO of the company, has an incentive (and well-known tendency) to overstate the capabilities of its vehicles.

Lawyers did not use that exact word here, but they do claim that Musk’s statements are “forward-looking” and “visionary.”

But, for a guy who talks so much that he wasted $44 billion on a $12 billion social media site (twice) so that he could force his words in front of every user every day, denying that his words have an effect is a strange legal argument.

Indeed, Tesla has a history of not doing paid advertisements in traditional media, and has relied on Musk, and specifically Musk’s twitter account, to be the company’s impromptu communications platform. Musk even closed the company’s PR department, instead taking on the full burden of that himself.

So to argue that Musk’s statements shouldn’t be admissible, or that they didn’t set the tone for the organization, is more than a little silly.

While Tesla and Musk did state many times that Autopilot was not full self-driving (although, neither was the feature they marketed under the name, ahem, “Full Self-Driving”), the balance of Musk’s statements describing Tesla’s features definitely could have led a driver to think that the vehicles were more capable than any other vehicle on the road.

This is why it’s strange that Tesla also argues that “no other car” could have stopped in the situation of the crash. If your company is constantly claiming that you have the best, safest, most autonomy-enabled vehicle in the world (including in this filing, where it is referred to as “state of the art”), then who cares whether other cars could have done it or not? We’re talking about your car, not anything else.

Further, Tesla said that admitting these statements will put a chilling effect on every corporation’s ability to project anticipated breakthroughs in tech. To this I say, frankly: good. Enough with the nonsense, lets focus on reality, and lets stop excusing lies as corporate puffery, across all industries.

But this is an example of Tesla trying to have it both ways, to pretend that Musk’s statements are just puffery but also that they are important to breakthroughs and that silencing Musk would harm the company. Yes, it probably would harm Tesla’s outreach – because Musk’s statements are roughly the only source of Tesla’s advertising, which is why they ought to be heard to establish what the public thinks about the capabilities of Teslas.

And while Tesla says that cases like these would “chill” development of safety features if manufacturers are punished for bringing them to market, the punishment here isn’t for bringing the feature to market, it’s for overselling the feature in a way that set public expectations too high. Other features have not received this sort of scrutiny because other features don’t get pumped up daily with ridiculous overstatements by the company’s sole source of advertising.

On the other points, I’m not a lawyer. I’m not up to date on the specific limits to punitive damages in Florida. But on the surface, it seems fair to me that if a company was found to withhold data in an important case, after declining a settlement, that some level of significant punishment is fair.

After all, withholding data in a single non-fatal crash that wasn’t even their fault is what led Cruise to shut down operations everywhere. That may have been an overreaction and would certainly be an overreaction in this case with Tesla, given the driver’s responsibility for the crash. But in this case, the damage done to people (a death) was greater, and the damages Tesla is being told to pay ($243 million) will not lead to a shutdown of the entire company. Especially considering this is the same company that just managed to find tens of billions of dollars to give to a bad CEO.


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