The best new China energy deal came before Trump-Xi summit
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President Donald Trump’s much-hyped summit with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier today yielded predictable results; vague promises for China to buy U.S. oil combined with a veiled threat about Taiwan. For the gaggle of U.S. celebrity tech CEOs dragged along to stand behind the president, it looked like a waste of time.
The most-promising deal with China took place far away from the pomp and circumstance in Beijing, in Michigan. That’s where Ford Motor Co. F 0.00%↑ announced the creation of a new energy business, Ford Energy, that relies in major part on battery technology from China’s CATL battery giant.
When the deal was announced last year, analysts wondered whether the White House would let a major joint venture between an historic U.S. auto company and a Chinese firm go through. But by structuring the arrangement as a licensing deal, where Ford pays for the technology but builds the plant in America and hires American workers, it seems to have passed Trump’s muster.
The deal is central to Ford’s electrification ambitions. Not only will it allow new battery technology for future electric vehicles, should Ford decide to ramp up EVs again. but it gives it an entire new energy platform to help supply energy and battery storage to the booming AI data center sector.
Ford CEO Jim Farley, who has been vocal about the threat of Chinese EVs in America, did not accompany Trump to Beijing this week. But he deserves credit for seeing the Chinese technology for the leader it is and finding a way for Ford to benefit from it without threatening its core business or cultural status.
If anything is to come from this latest summit, it will likely be more licensing deals like the Ford-CATL one, which benefit both sides while only slightly opening the American door to future Chinese renewable technology.
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Profit and purpose: How intense competition makes the best climate warriors
. . . . Investing in clean energy has always suffered from the stigma that to bet on a climate change company, you have to give up profit for purpose. Not so, writes Mark Hulbert, citing a new study. It turns out that companies with aggressive market cultures focused on metrics and profit results make the best type of companies to hit climate targets and lower carbon footprints. Researchers from the University of Manchester in the UK found that “market culture offers [investors] an observable signal of a firm’s likely responsiveness to climate pressures.” Rather than detract from its pursuit of profit, climate targets and metrics align with that type of culture, according to the study. Hulbert breaks down how the study profiled corporate cultures and how other types of cultures impact climate policies as well.
Thursday’s subscriber insights
Geothermal takes public stage as Fervo Energy IPO pops 35%
. . . . As clean energy companies go, Fervo Energy FRVO 0.00%↑ isn’t the cheapest or the cleanest. But the nine-year-old geothermal energy company out of Houston, which debuted on the Nasdaq Stock Market this week with a 35% gain, represents a major opportunity to unite the renewables and fossil fuel markets over climate change.
Fervo is run by Tim Latimer, a former oil and gas executive who has taken the most sophisticated drilling techniques for fossil fuels such as shale and applied them to geothermal energy, essentially shooting water into scalding rocks beneath the earth’s surface and then using the super-hot water it creates to produce electricity.
The process is several times more expensive than producing electricity with wind or solar, but Fervo insists costs are coming down through more efficient drilling techniques. It’s also a process that is favored by the Trump administration, likely for its connection to oil and gas, and continues to receive federal subsidies.
While Fervo’s reported revenue, at $138,000 last year, is tiny, the company boasts several major deals to supply electricity, including one with Google GOOGL 0.00%↑. A new plant in Utah has already broken ground and is scheduled to start supplying electricity to customers later this year.
The IPO is the first of the renewable energy IPOs this year and one of the first geothermal companies to go public since much larger Ormat ORA 0.00%↑ did more than 20 years ago. But investors hungry for any type of energy to power the surging growth of AI data centers gobbled it up. The company raised about $1.9 billion to invest in new projects, valuing it at about $7.7 billion before its first-day pop and more than $10 billion afterward. Shares of Ormat rose almost 7% Wednesday in sympathy.
As IPOs go, it’s not SpaceX or Anthropic, or even Cerebras Systems (CBRS), which debuts today. But geothermal has its place in the pantheon of clean energy plays, and right now Fervo is one of just a few public companies in the space for green investors to bet on it.
Editor’s picks: Key Atlantic current is weakening. Plus, here comes El Niño
Watch the video: A vast Atlantic current, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), shapes Europe’s climate and global weather. Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf breaks down why scientists are more concerned about its stability than ever before.
Rare ‘Super’ El Niño
An El Niño is emerging faster than expected in the Pacific Ocean and odds are growing that it could become historically strong — a rare “Super” El Niño — by fall or winter. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said today in an update that there’s a two-in-three chance that this season’s El Niño’s peak strength will be strong or very strong. “Stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they can only make certain impacts more likely. El Niño is likely to emerge soon (82% chance in May-July 2026) and continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27 (96% chance in December 2026-February 2027). El Niño and La Niña are climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean that can affect weather worldwide. NOAA says episodes typically last nine to 12 months. “The warmer waters cause the Pacific jet stream to move south of its neutral position. With this shift, areas in the northern U.S. and Canada are dryer and warmer than usual. But in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Southeast, these periods are wetter than usual and have increased flooding.”
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
Making apples more resilient to climate change
As extreme weather accelerates, scientists are growing worried about the essential and time-tested rootstocks of the hundreds of thousands of acres of apple trees in the U.S. They may not be able to withstand the climate tests of decades to come, reports The Guardian. “Damage to rootstocks means damage to a U.S. apple industry that generates roughly $23 billion in annual economic activity and yields over 11 billion pounds of the country’s most-consumed fruit,” the report says. Terence Robinson, a Cornell University horticulture professor, and USDA scientist Gennaro Fazio, lead North America’s only effort to give commercial growers new foundations for their orchards. Cornell University and the USDA conduct the Geneva Apple Rootstock Breeding Program at a research station in Geneva, New York. According to the report, the initial focus of the program was on disease resistance, particularly to a bacterial infection known as fire blight, but researchers now are looking to develop apple rootstocks with traits to cope with a changing climate. These include drought resistance, tolerance of high-salt-content soils and the ability to withstand more moderate winters. Robinson has been working on the program since 1991. “It requires long-term commitment to learn to love apple rootstocks,” he said.
Words to live by . . . .
“Observe constantly that all things take place by change and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.