This week, the Department of Energy cancelled its nearly $8 billion awards. This is a move touted by the Trump administration as an effort to protect fossil fuels at the expense of renewable energy. However, the documents obtained by TechCrunch show that reality is more complicated than its simple message.
The agency has not published a list of cancelled awards, but TechCrunch has obtained a copy and analyzed 321 contracts DOE is trying to revert.
However, not all projects are focused on renewable energy.
Two listed in the document, one for $300 million for Colorado State University and the other for $220 million for the Gas Technology Institute, helping oil and gas producers reduce methane emissions, large and small, from wells.
The Gas Technology Research Institute is a research and development organization that mainly deals with the natural gas industry. The group has received a total of $417 million awards cancelled.
Carbon capture and removal was also a hit, with 10 of the 21 projects cancelling a total of about $200 million cancellations. Many are in states voting for Harris, but the rubric doesn’t explain the big picture.
“Three categories are pop-ups,” Carbon180 executive director Erin Burns told TechCrunch. “Where are they? Who are those partners? Have these projects moved forward?”
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It is true that the move hit the hardest the state that voted for Kamala Harris in the last presidential election. California lost the most, with contracts worth at least $2.2 billion cancelled. Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oregon each killed about $5 billion worth of awards, while New York lost at least $309 million.
Those who voted for Trump tended to cancel their contracts to the value of single-digit millions of dollars.
One of the biggest awards cancelled was awarded to Minnesota for $467 million. The fund, awarded as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in 2021, was intended to revamp the interconnection of electrical grids across seven Midwest states. Once completed, the sun and wind were mainly unlocking the new generated capacity of about 28 gigawatts. According to Goldman Sachs, for context, the global data center fleet will subtract 58 gigawatts.
Similarly, another $630 million worth of revamped the California electric grid, testing advanced conductors and dynamic line rated devices to increase transmit capacity. The project was an effective, nationally applicable showcase for grid modernization.
Yet another grid modernization project would install power lines in Confederate tribes in Warm Springs, Oregon. The tribe has about half a dozen renewable projects waiting for better grid connections. The project also featured fiber optic lines along the transmission line path, bringing high-speed data to rural areas of the state.
“The recipients who survived in the Blue State will probably be more aligned with the administration to industry, which is a priority for this administration,” said Courtni Holness, policy advisor at Carbon180.
Anyway, some of the small awards could have been to the Knicks. “That’s how the US approaches energy innovation in general,” Burns said. “You take a lot of shots at the goal, because you don’t know what will progress regionally, technically, or economically. And you take a lot of shots at the goal at a lower cost.”
Furthermore, it appears that government support and policies are raising wagers, like Canada, to move where government support and policies become more predictable. “You’ll see more of it, and it’s affecting private sector investment,” Burns said.
“I think that’s a bigger problem,” Holness added.
