Hanwha vs. Holt: How New Jersey lost a shipyard

Holt refused to give up its lease in Paulsboro. Hanwha is now looking in southern states for a place to invest a chunk of the $5 billion it has pledged for U.S. shipbuilding.

Former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (left) takes a tour at the Paulsboro factory where Germany-based multinational pipemaker EEW had begun building massive cylindrical supports for New Jersey’s planned ocean wind electric plants before the program was canceled.

By Joseph N. DiStefano, Philadelphia Inquirer


Hanwha Philly Shipyard says it needs a lot more space outside its 110-acre South Philadelphia complex to win lucrative U.S. Navy contracts, turn the money-losing facility profitable, and hire up to 1,000 union welders and metalworkers.

The Korean-owned yard’s leaders thought they had found just the place, four miles by barge down the Delaware River at the New Jersey-funded Paulsboro facility, vacated by the offshore wind industry when President Donald Trump killed that program. In December, Hanwha agreed to take over the lease.

But port operator Holt Logistics refused approval and sued to block the deal. After months of lobbying, Hanwha has given up and is now collecting offers from southern states that hope Hanwha will invest a big chunk of the $5 billion it has pledged for U.S. shipbuilding into their yards and future workers.

This despite the fact Hanwha’s proposal enjoyed support from federal, state, and local officials and even made it into the U.S. military budget for fiscal year 2026, which called for $110 million “to support shipbuilding industrial capacity” and steel fabrication in a manufacturing facility “formerly used for offshore wind manufacturing.”

Paulsboro Mayor John Giovannitti estimates that on a given day, there are fewer than 50 workers at the port.

Leo Holt, whose century-old company runs ports in Gloucester City and South Philadelphia, said he’s not completely averse to manufacturing around the Paulsboro terminal after his family’s plans to beef up container and bulk shipping there accelerate.

Hanwha declined to comment, confirming only that the shipyard is still looking for space “in the U.S.”

What went wrong?

The full article here

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Federal Court rules against Trump EPA’s freeze of $20B in ​‘green bank’ funds

(J. David Ake/Getty Images)

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency acted improperly in terminating billions of dollars of ​“green bank” financing last year, setting up a potential showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court over one of the Trump administration’s earliest attacks on a key Biden-era climate program.

Tuesday’s divided ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is a victory for the nonprofit groups targeted by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as part of a broader attack on the Biden administration’s clean energy and climate spending.

In March 2025, the EPA moved to freeze $20 billion in funding under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), which was created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and is commonly known as the federal ​“green bank” program. The ambitious effort was meant to inject large-scale federal funding into climate and clean-energy lending pioneered by state-level green banks — lending institutions that have successfully enabled $21.8 billion in public-private investment to date.

The idea was to put federal money to work to boost financing for clean energy and climate-oriented projects in communities that have traditionally lacked access to it. That could spur a virtuous cycle that could yield between $150 billion to $250 billion in private-sector investment over the next 10 years, according to an April 2023 analysis by consultancy McKinsey.

That effort has been frozen in its tracks by the current EPA, forcing the nonprofits awarded grants to curtail operations. Those groups argued that the EPA’s actions violated the law by not spending money authorized by Congress.

Read the full article here

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PJM’s big new data center plan: Make the states figure it out

Grid operator PJM wants states and utilities to hold data centers responsible for buying their own power — or risk being cut off from grid service.

 

Data center building with construction equipment on a dirt lot, with a nuclear power reactor behind it

A data center owned by Amazon Web Services under construction in Berwick, Pennsylvania, in January 2025 (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

By Jeff St. John, Canary Media

PJM Interconnection, the biggest grid operator in the U.S., has finally settled on a plan to prevent data centers from causing other customers’ utility bills to soar further in its 13-state territory.

That plan relies heavily on states themselves, and the utilities they regulate, to force data centers to secure their own power supplies — or face the possibility of getting their power cut off during grid emergencies.

Last week, PJM’s board of managers sent proposals along these lines to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which must grant the grid operator permission before it can implement the new plan for its system, which serves about 67 million people from Virginia to Illinois. The multipart plan is PJM’s attempt to quiet down months of mounting pressure from state governors and the Trump administration to contain skyrocketing costs while staying within its regulatory limits.

“Historically, PJM has been very nervous to step into what it considered — or what are legally — the states’ rights,” said Julia Hoos, who leads coverage of Eastern U.S. power markets for Aurora Energy Research. But with its new proposals, PJM is ​“making a definitive request to the states to accomplish what it needs.”

Read the full article here.

 

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The Timeline of President Trump’s Wrath Over Power Turbines

Land-based wind turbines spin in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on November 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Land-based wind turbines spin in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on November 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry) | AP Photo/Wayne Parry

 

By Hannah Parry, Newsweek

President Donald Trump has spent years criticizing wind turbines, calling them unsightly, expensive, and harmful to wildlife while arguing they should be replaced by fossil fuels and other energy sources.

His opposition resurfaced Monday during remarks in the Oval Office, where he again criticized “windmills” while discussing Europe’s economic challenges, continuing a theme that has become one of the most consistent features of his public rhetoric.

Trump’s stance has evolved from a fight over an offshore wind farm near one of his Scottish golf courses into a broader campaign against wind energy, culminating in executive actions during his second term aimed at slowing new wind projects across the United States.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Newsweek, “‘Wind energy is a costly, intermittent energy source that has proven to be unreliable in times of peak demand. President Trump is focused on unleashing reliable, affordable, and secure energy that delivers when Americans need it the most.”

The White House also directed Newsweek to several X posts from the Department of Energy, including one that stated that when a severe heatwave on July 2 and 3 pushed Mid-Atlantic regional power operator PJM to peak demand, “82% of available wind power failed. By sunset, despite still high temps, 99% of solar power also failed.” “During a recent summer heat wave across the Mid-Atlantic, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power kept the lights and air conditioners on. The most valuable energy sources show up when you need them most,” the Department added.

Read the full article here

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Five Morris County NJ Municipalities Awarded $1,500 in Grants

The Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority (MCMUA) has announced its annual mini-grant program aimed at promoting waste reduction and enhancing recycling efforts.

This year, five municipalities were awarded $1,500 grants each to support innovative recycling and waste prevention projects. The competitive grant program provides funding to increase recycling participation, educate residents, reduce waste and promote community sustainability across Morris County.

“Supporting these local projects is a great way to help our municipalities find practical ways to reduce waste and improve recycling,” said Morris County Commissioner Tayfun Selen, liaison to the MCMUA. “We appreciate the work these communities are doing and look forward to seeing the results of their efforts.”

The 2026 Waste Reduction and Recycling Mini Grant recipients are:

  1. Mendham Borough – Residential Food Waste Collection Program
  2. Mendham Township – Plastic Film Recycling Pilot Program & Backyard Composting Training and Starter Kit Program
  3. Morris Township – Residential Food Waste Collection and Drop-off Pilot
  4. Morristown – Residential Food Waste Collection and Drop-off Pilot
  5. Rockaway Township – CCTV Cameras for its Curbside Recycling Trucks to monitor for recycling contamination and provide proper recycling education practices to residents.

About The Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority:

The MCMUA was established by the Morris County Board of Commissioners to provide regional leadership in drinking water, solid waste management and open space preservation. Through its Water Division, the MCMUA supplies wholesale drinking water to local distribution systems. Its Solid Waste Division implements the Morris County Solid Waste Management Plan, overseeing recycling, waste disposal, hazardous and vegetative waste programs, and litter prevention. The MCMUA also promotes open space preservation to protect drinking water resources.

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The huge untapped opportunity offered by end-of-life wind farms

Far from junk, old wind turbines represent an untapped reservoir of rare earths waiting to be exploited, argues Luke Wray, senior vice president at Paladin Envirotech, a technology-lifecycle and critical-materials recovery company

 

By David M. Zimmer, NorthJersey.com

New Jersey is betting on nuclear power to help meet growing electricity demand. But even if every reactor envisioned under a new state law is built, it would cover only about half of the state’s current power shortfall.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s Power NJ Act, signed on July 13, sets a target of at least 1,100 megawatts of new nuclear generation, roughly the output of a large reactor. But even if the full amount is approved and built, it would generate enough electricity to offset only about 52% to 55% of the state’s current power shortfall, based on a NorthJersey.com analysis of state data.

The analysis provides one of the first measures of how far the state’s headline nuclear goal would go toward solving a problem Sherrill has made central to her energy agenda: New Jersey produces far less electricity than it uses. Even under the law’s most optimistic scenario, the state would have to import nearly half of the power needed to close that gap.

The law starts a competitive process for developers but does not guarantee that the full number will be approved or built.

If it were, the new reactors could generate between 8.7 million and 9.2 million megawatt-hours per year at the operating rates cited by the Sherrill administration.

New Jersey’s latest in-state generation gap was nearly twice that size.

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