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As Winter Storm Fern swept across the United States in late January 2026, bringing ice, snow, and freezing temperatures, it left more than a million people without power, mostly in the Southeast. Scrambling to meet higher than average demand, PJM, the nonprofit company that operates the grid serving much of the mid-Atlantic U.S., asked for federal permission to generate more power, even if it caused high levels of air pollution from burning relatively dirty fuels. Energy Secretary Chris Wright agreed and took another step, too. He authorized PJM and ERCOTthe company that manages the Texas power gridas well as Duke Energy, a major electricity supplier in the Southeast, to tell data centers and other large power-consuming businesses to turn on their backup generators. The goal was to make sure there was enough power available to serve customers as the storm hit. Generally, these facilities power themselves and do not send power back to the grid. But Wright explained that their industrial diesel generators could generate 35 gigawatts of power, or enough electricity to power many millions of homes. We are scholars of the electricity industry who live and work in the Southeast. In the wake of Winter Storm Fern, we see opportunities to power data centers with less pollution while helping communities prepare for, get through, and recover from winter storms. Data centers use enormous quantities of energy Before Wrights order, it was hard to say whether data centers would reduce the amount of electricity they take from the grid during storms or other emergencies. This is a pressing question, because data centers power demands to support generative artificial intelligence are already driving up electricity prices in congested grids like PJMs. And data centers are expected to need only more power. Estimates vary widely, but the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab anticipates that the share of electricity production in the U.S. used by data centers could spike from 4.4% in 2023 to between 6.7% and 12% by 2028. PJM expects a peak load growth of 32 gigawatts by 2030enough power to supply 30 million new homes, but nearly all going to new data centers. PJMs job is to coordinate that energyand figure out how much the public, or others, should pay to supply it. The race to build new data centers and find the electricity to power them has sparked enormous public backlash about how data centers will inflate household energy costs. Other concerns are that power-hungry data centers fed by natural gas generators can hurt air quality, consume water, and intensify climate damage. Many data centers are located, or proposed, in communities already burdened by high levels of pollution. Local ordinances, regulations created by state utility commissions, and proposed federal laws have tried to protect ratepayers from price hikes and require data centers to pay for the transmission and generation infrastructure they need. Always-on connections? In addition to placing an increasing burden on the grid, many data centers have asked utility companies for power connections that are active 99.999% of the time. But since the 1970s, utilities have encouraged demand response programs, in which large power users agree to reduce their demand during peak times like Winter Storm Fern. In return, utilities offer financial incentives such as bill credits for participation. Over the years, demand response programs have helped utility companies and power grid managers lower electricity demand at peak times in summer and winter. The proliferation of smart meters allows residential customers and smaller businesses to participate in these efforts as well. When aggregated with rooftop solar, batteries and electric vehicles, these distributed energy resources can be dispatched as virtual power plants. A different approach The terms of data center agreements with local governments and utilities often arent available to the public. That makes it hard to determine whether data centers could or would temporarily reduce their power use. In some cases, uninterrupted access to power is necessary to maintain critical data systems, such as medical records, bank accounts and airline reservation systems. Yet, data center demand has spiked with the AI boom, and developers have increasingly been willing to consider demand response. In August 2025, Google announced new agreements with Indiana Michigan Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide data center demand response by targeting machine learning workloads, shifting non-urgent compute tasks away from times when the grid is strained. Several new companies have also been founded specifically to help AI data centers shift workloads and even use in-house battery storage to temporarily move data centers power use off the grid during power shortages. Flexibility for the future One study has found that if data centers would commit to using power flexibly, an additional 100 gigawatts of capacitythe amount that would power around 70 million householdscould be added to the grid without adding new generation and transmission. In another instance, researchers demonstrated how data centers could invest in offsite generation through virtual power plants to meet their generation needs. Installing solar panels with battery storage at businesses and homes can boost available electricity more quickly and cheaply than building a new full-size power plant. Virtual power plants also provide flexibility as grid operators can tap into batteries, shift thermostats or shut down appliances in periods of peak demand. These projects can also benefit the buildings where they are hosted. Distributed energy generation and storage, alongside winterizing power lines and using renewables, are key ways to help keep the lights on during and after winter storms. Those efforts can make a big difference in places like Nashville, Tennessee, where more than 230,000 customers were without power at the peak of outages during Fern, not because there wasnt enough electricity for their homes but because their power lines were down. The future of AI is uncertain. Analysts caution that the AI industry may prove to be a speculative bubble: If demand flatlines, they say, electricity customers may end up paying for grid improvements and new generation built to meet needs that would not actually exist. Onsite diesel generators are an emergency solution for large users such as data centers to reduce strain on the grid. Yet, this is not a long-term solution to winter storms. Instead, if data centers, utilities, regulators and grid operators are willing to also consider offsite distributed energy to meet electricity demand, then their investments could help keep energy prices down, reduce air pollution and harm to the climate, and help everyone stay powered up during summer heat and winter cold. Nikki Luke is an assistant professor of human geography at the University of Tennessee. Conor Harrison is an associate professor of economic geography at the University of South Carolina. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
In 2024, the clean energy sector saw a job boom: The industry added nearly 100,000 new jobs throughout that year, meaning clean energy jobs grew more than three times faster than the rest of the workforce. Last year was a different story, however. It was a year of losses for the clean energy industry, in terms of projects, investments, and employment. Existing factories closed, like Natron Energys sodium-ion battery facilities in Michigan and California. Planned facilities were canceled, including a $3.2 billion Stellantis battery factory in Illinois. And multiple kinds of projects were scrapped, blocked, or downsized, from EV plants to wind farms. In total, the turbulent year meant that 38,000 jobsa mix of current and future positionswere erased from the clean energy industry, according to a new analysis by E2, a nonpartisan organization that tracks U.S. clean energy projects. A net loss of clean energy jobs The vast majority of those 38,000 lost jobs were in manufacturing (though some may have been counted in multiple categories, like energy generation or maintenance). For comparison, by the end of 2024, there were about 577,000 manufacturing jobs in the clean energy industry. These job losses are especially significant because theyre happening amid a general decline in manufacturing employment. In 2024, clean energy manufacturing had been a “bright spot,” says Michael Timberlake, E2 director of research and publications, helping bring back U.S. production. “When those projects are canceled, were not just losing jobs on paper; were losing a pathway that had been driving a new manufacturing resurgence,” he says. “And the investment doesnt disappear. It moves to other countries and U.S. competitors that are aggressively building clean energy supply chains and hiring the workers we cant afford to lose.” Even amid cancellations, some new clean energy projects and jobs were announced in 2025, like a $42 million Anthro Energy battery factory in Louisville, Kentucky, which will create 110 jobs. But the number of jobs eliminated outweighs those potential additions. Just 22,905 jobs were announced in 2025, meaning a net loss of more than 15,000 expected clean energy positions. No previous year tracked by E2 saw job losses on this scale, underscoring how quickly employment gains can evaporate when projects are abandoned, the analysis reads. New clean energy investments were also overshadowed by cancellations. Companies canceled, closed, or downsized $34.8 billion in clean energy projects, nearly three times the $12.3 billion in new investment announced throughout the year, a 3-to-1 imbalance. Republican-held districts hit harder Though the entire country was affected by these losses, Republican-held districts felt their impact a bit more than others. Republican districts lost $19.9 billion in investments that would have brought 24,500 jobs to those regions, compared to $10.6 billion and 12,600 jobs lost in Democratic-held districts. That makes sense because the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed by then-President Joe Biden in 2022which spurred clean energy jobs and projectsbenefited many Republican-led districts, even though not a single Republican voted for the legislation and in fact House Republicans voted 42 times to repeal it. Nearly 200,000 of the 334,000 clean energy jobs that the IRA created in its first two years were in congressional districts represented by Republican House members. Still, clean energy is growing Despite attacks on clean energy by the current Trump administration, the sector is still growing in the United States. In 2025, nearly all of the new power added to the countrys grid came from solar, wind, and batteries. Even the U.S. Energy Information Administration has said that all net new generating capacity the country sees in 2026 will come from renewables. And clean energy experts say the industry will continue to groweven as the president tries to prop up coal, oil, and gasbecause electricity generated from renewables is cheaper than fossil fuels, and the projects are often faster to build than fossil fuel power plants. Still, economic losses that the clean energy sector saw in 2025 are devastating, and may not be fully recovered. And if clean energy job growth is at risk, that affects our entire economy. Clean energy jobs are present in every single state, and, as the World Resources Institute put it in November, movement toward clean energy will create opportunity for millions of Americans. E2’s data also doesn’t capture the “tens of thousands of additional jobs and projects” that likely would have been announced if the country’s policy and market certainty continued, Timberlake says. “Likely hundreds of projects that would have been announced, and hundreds more that could’ve been announced this year, cannot be recovered,” he adds, “and will instead benefiting workers and communities in other countries.”
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E-Commerce
U.S. job openings fell to the lowest level in more than five years, another sign that the American labor market remains sluggish. The Labor Department reported Thursday that vacancies fell to 6.5 million in December from 6.9 million in November and the fewest since September 2020. Layoffs rose slightly. The number of people quitting their jobs which shows confidence in their prospects was basically unchanged at 3.2 million. December openings came in lower than economists had forecast. The economy is in a puzzling place. Growth is strong: Gross domestic product the nations output of goods and services advanced from July through September at the fastest pace in two years. But the job market is lackluster: Employers have added just 28,000 jobs a month since March. In the 2021-2023 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns, by contrast, they were creating 400,000 jobs a month. When the Labor Department releases hiring and unemployment numbers for January next Wednesday, they are expected to show the companies, government agencies and nonprofits added about 70,000 jobs last month modest but up from 50,000 in December. On Wednesday, payroll processor ADP reported that private employers added just 22,000 jobs last month, far fewer than forecasters had expected. And the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday that companies slashed more than 108,000 jobs last month, the most since October and the worst January for job cuts since 2009. The hiring recession isnt going to end anytime soon,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a commentary. “Job openings in December just fell to their lowest level since September 2020. Its yet another sign of how little hiring or interest in hiring is happening in this economy. Economists are trying to figure out if hiring will accelerate to catch up to strong growth or if growth will slow to reflect a weak labor market or if advances in artificial intelligence and automation mean that the economy can roar ahead without creating many jobs. Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
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E-Commerce
Novo Nordisk’s stock dove 7% on Thursday just after an announcement from a key competitor. The drop came just after telehealth company Hims & Hers announced it will offer a new version of the treatment, made from the same active ingredient, semaglutide, for a fraction of Novo Nordisk’s price. The telehealth site will offer the treatment at an introductory price of $49, the announcement said. After the introductory offer ends, patients with a five-month subscription will pay $99 monthly for the treatment. Novo Nordisk sells the weight-loss drug for $149. Hims & Hers had already been offering the treatment in an injectable form, but the oral version is new for the brand. “We’re excited to find ways to continue bringing branded treatments to the platform across specialties. More choice on the platform is the best thing for customers everywhere,” said Hims CEO Andrew Dudum in a statement. While the announcement spurred Novo Nordisk’s stock to reach its lowest level since July 2021, it wasn’t the only company that saw its stock slip on Thursday. Eli Lilly’s fell by up to 6.1% on the announcement. Meanwhile, Hims and Hers Health stock surged 19% on Thursday. On Wednesday, Novo CFO Karsten Munk Knudsen told Reuters that the company is “frustrated” with “mass marketing” of knock-off versions of the drug which was “unapproved by the FDA.” The CFO warned of unprecedented pricing pressure as competition grows in the weight-loss drug market, added that it’s a challenge to predict “if and when the tide turns” for the brand. Per Hims & Hers announcement, the company said that safety is the brand’s “top priority.” It continued, “The Compounded Semaglutide Pill joins a wide range of other weight loss treatments accessible through our platform, all of which meet rigorous clinical standards.” Fast Company reached out to Novo Nordisk but did not hear back by the time of publication. In November, when the company dropped its prices to fend off competition, Dave Moore, executive vice president of U.S. operations at Novo Nordisk, said, As pioneers of the GLP-1 class, we are committed to ensuring that real, FDA-approved Wegovy and Ozempic are affordable and accessible to those who need them.” Moore continued: The U.S. healthcare system is complex, with different types of insurance and various ways for patients to obtain their medicines. Our new savings offers provide immediate impact, bringing forward greater cost savings for those who are currently without coverage or choose to self-pay.
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E-Commerce
In certain corners of corporate America, a generous parental leave policy has become a crucial tool for recruiting and retention. Many of the biggest tech employers have been leaders on this front, offering 16 to 20 weeks of leave, or even close to six months at companies like Google. But even as companies have expanded their parental leave benefits, few of them have sought to address the unique challenges many parentsand especially mothersface when they actually return to work. A handful of companies, among them Apple and Amazon, offer a grace period that enables employees to ease back into work part-time or work flexible hours for a few weeks. Despite all these advances, clinical psychologist and author Angele Close argues that many leaders still dont fully comprehend how pregnancy and motherhood fundamentally changes peoplea phenomenon that is now better understood. Over the last decade, researchers have studied how going through pregnancy and motherhood alters cognition and changes the brain in a manner that lasts at least two years. Theres a term for this experience: matrescence, which Close defines as a profound identity transformation that women go through becoming mothers, [which] affects all areas of their lifephysiologically, neurologically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. In her book Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood, journalist and science writer Lucy Jones describes it as a transition akin to adolescence, with comparable changes to the brain. The modern workplace, however, is not really designed to accommodate matrescence. Its not just that women are uniquely impacted by pregnancy and childbirth; in many cases, they also disproportionately shoulder the burden of caregiving responsibilities. Even now, with so many companies offering more generous leave policies, men still take less leave. Most workplaces are simply not equipped to adequately support working mothers when they returnand concerns over showing bias or making shaky assumptions about their ambitions can put employers in a tricky position. Setting up support Close believes the first step is just increasing awareness of how working mothers are changed by the experience of matrescence. People don’t understand matrescence yet, so we have to get that language in our culture to really appreciate it, she says. There is this idea [that] you get your leave, and then you’re going to just bounce right back . . . Of course, it’s unique and individual to everybody. But even just having that language and the lens of itshe’s not coming back the same woman she was when she left. And can we give space for that? Can we be curious about that? For some employees, matrescence might precipitate a more radical shift. Many women do start wanting different things, Close says. What lights you up before might light you up differently. Sometimes that might mean they are going to just leave the company and go and try something new. Of course, despite common assumptions that a womans ambitions recede after having a baby, everyone responds to motherhood differently. But Close says companies should be more open to the idea that something may have shifted. Or at least give employees an opening to have a conversation about their priorities upon their return: both what they might need as they reacclimate, and how they hope to balance their ambitions alongside their caregiving responsibilities. That might also include having a follow-up conversation a few months down the road, to check in and reevaluate. Most women that I talk to want that, says Close, who works with clients both as a therapist and motherhood coach. They are fulfilled in work. They don’t want to stay at home. They want to find a way to integrate this and make it work. But because it’s not understood in the workforce and in their organizations, they aren’t fully supported. Navigating a transformation While parental leave policies and other caregiver benefits can amount to lip service at certain companies, it remains a crucial offering for many employees, as well as an opportunity for companies to talk about issues that might impact working parents. A company that wants to highlight the challenges faced by mothers returning to the workplace could, for example, bring in people to speak on the subject for a “lunch and learn event. When employers dont leave room for much dialogue about their career ambitions, it also makes it that much more difficult for working mothers to raise concerns. If I’m not feeling supported, now I have to vocalize it, Close says. So the more that people understand, the safer it’s going to be for a mom to have the confidence to say: I know it’s not me and I’m not failing. This is what I need. In fact, companies should see this as an opportunity to cultivate loyalty and strong leadership skills. The experience of matrescence can be a real positive transformation for women, Close says, one that gives them greater clarity on their values and priorities. The juggling act of early motherhood enhances their ability to manage competing priorities in a way that can prove exceptionally useful in the workplace. She’s now juggling many, many things, and her whole bodyher physiologyis managing that, and developing it, and getting good at it, she says. Were missing out on potential great leaders if they just feel unsupported and end up leaning out. The costs of failing to support There are long-term consequences when companies fail to develop those employees, well beyond the acute transformation of early motherhood. In their initial years of child-rearing, working mothers may need more flexibility in their schedules and seek out greater work-life balance. But the motherhood penalty can affect how companies perceive those women further along in their careers, as their children grow older and they want to pour themselves into their work. There are a lot of women who are kind of at the later stages of motherhood, where they have a lot to offer, Close says. They have more energy, they have more space, and they have gained those skills. After all, theres a real cost when companies are unable to retain these workers. In the years since the pandemicwhich drove many working mothers out of their jobsthe number of women in the workforce had surpassed pre-pandemic levels. But last year, that trend started to reverse: In the first half of 2025, about 212,000 women exited the workforce, and a Washington Post analysis found that the share of working mothers between the ages of 25 and 44 had dipped by nearly three percentage points. The December jobs report cemented this shift as 81,000 workers left the labor forceall of whom were women, according to the National Womens Law Center. When moms come to see me, they’re cracking, or the’re burnt out, Close says. A big part of what I do is to just say: What you’re going through is normal, and it’s expected, and it’s not a personal, individual failure. What a world it would be if we all understood that, and companies and bosses and CEOs could make space for that and be supportive. We’d have a lot more moms [who] are thriving.
Category:
E-Commerce
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