JULY 16, 2025

Hello, 

We are publishing our final stories today. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us and for sharing in recent weeks how important Cipher’s journalism has been to you over the last few years. We’ve loved hearing from you!

Cipher's website will be accessible through the end of the year and then archived.

Learn how you can keep up with our great team here.

Our final edition is full of reflections, philosophy and even some breaking news:

• I have an exclusive interview with Bill Gates, where he comments on Trump's big bill, AI and more.
• In my column, I write about time, swinging pendulums and what all that means for the energy transition.
• The rest of the team shares reflections on their time at Cipher and what they think may come next for clean energy.
• Bill Spindle has one final Data Dive looking at big picture clean energy investment trends.
• We also share recommendations for publications to follow in Cipher’s stead.

P.S. 

I'll be following up with a new, independent newsletter to let you know about my next chapter, so stay tuned!

Bill Gates, chairman of the Gates Foundation, during the Federation of German Industries (BDI) conference in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Exclusive: Bill Gates on Trump’s big bill, AI and more  

BY: AMY HARDER

Bill Gates, a major funder of climate technologies, told Cipher in an exclusive interview that the Trump administration’s recently enacted law largely rolling back the biggest set of climate incentives in American history was not as bad as could have been expected. 

“It wasn’t quite the evisceration that a complete lack of believing in climate change might have led to,” Gates said in a video interview on Tuesday. 

Gates, founder of Breakthrough Energy and chairman of the Gates Foundation, was subtly referring to the fact that President Donald Trump, and virtually all his Cabinet members, have largely dismissed climate change as a problem. 

Known for being a persistent optimist, Gates readily acknowledged that the law — referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — effectively removed most federal incentives for the mature wind, solar and electric-vehicle technologies that would likely benefit the most Americans in the next 10 years. 

But he added that, on a global scale, the U.S. demand for these technologies is a small part of the global market. So, while the cuts may mean their development will not accelerate, they’re still “going to happen,” Gates said. 

As evidence the bill could have been far worse, Gates pointed to the fact that it retained tax credits for newer technologies, in particular geothermal and nuclear fission and fusion.

Editor’s note: Bill Gates is founder of Breakthrough Energy, which supports Cipher.

Click here to read additional excerpts of our interview.

With time, a swinging pendulum shapes energy and climate change

Illustration by Nadya Nickels.

BY: AMY HARDER

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about time. Many people — myself included! — bemoan that we don’t have enough of it.
 
But in the context of Cipher and the topics we cover, we have a different perspective: things take too long.
 
The time horizon of addressing climate change and transitioning our massive energy system to cleaner resources is spectacularly mismatched for humanity and its societal pendulum swings.
  
We have utility experts analyzing crises in seconds, clean-energy advances taking a generation, climate scientists warning of increasingly extreme weather over decades — all while political parties in power are shifting every few years. Meanwhile, most of you have stopped reading by now! 
 
These shockingly disparate time frames illustrate the fundamental challenge of addressing climate change and transitioning our energy system to cleaner resources. 
 
As Peter Atwater, a behavioral economist and a professor at William & Mary and University of Delaware, told me: “you have a long-term problem and an impatient crowd.” 
 
So we find ourselves here: President Donald Trump is rolling back most climate and clean energy incentives in the United States, while geopolitical unrest is grabbing headlines — and government dollars — away from climate and clean energy.  
 
To many climate activists, cleantech entrepreneurs and others invested in the clean energy transition — whether morally or financially — this moment in history is a dispiriting one.  
 
It’s also a difficult one for Cipher and our team of journalists.
 
After nearly four years of publishing, this is my last Harder Line column for Cipher News. We are ceasing publication as of today, July 16, 2025.
 
In hindsight, it’s hard not to wonder if these past four years were an interval of a pendulum. Was the momentum we had to tackle climate change inevitably going to swing back?
 
The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg put this axiom in the context of our nation’s political framework: “A great man once said that the true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle. It is the pendulum. And when the pendulum swings too far in one direction it will go back.”
 
Perhaps, then, we were never on track to meet net-zero climate goals and were always going to face a political backlash to progressive causes, including climate change.
 
But unlike a real pendulum, which swings from a fixed spot, the anchor point of American politics is always shifting. When it comes to addressing climate change, that might be a good thing.
 
Everyone I interviewed for this article agreed: The transition toward cleaner energy is (still) happening and will not go fully into reverse.
 
That’s due largely to a host of factors over the last 30 years — government policies, economic trends and more — that have made clean energy, in many instances, more affordable than fossil fuels.
 
“We’re not going back, but we’re not going straight forward,” said energy expert Daniel Yergin.
 
I asked Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy, about the time disconnect between a decadal problem like climate change and humans’ shrinking attention spans, especially as artificial intelligence makes so many things faster and easier.
 
“It underscores the paramount importance of bringing in areas of study about how we humans interact with information and make decisions,” Hayhoe said.
 
Of course, as time goes on, scientists like Hayhoe point out that our weather is almost certain to get more extreme. I wondered, could that push the political pendulum back toward more aggressive climate action?
 
“We’re not going to deal with the problem,” Atwater said plainly, seeming to imply that more radical solutions like geoengineering might be in the cards: “We’re going to deal with the consequences of not dealing with the problem.”
 
Just give it some time.
 
Editor’s note: Amy Harder serves on the Washington State chapter board of The Nature Conservancy in a volunteer capacity.

Read this article and share it on Cipher’s website.

The Cipher team reflects on the last four years — and looks ahead

Illustration by Nadya Nickels. From L to R, top row: Anca Gurzu, Amena H. Saiyid, Jillian Mock; bottom row: Cat Clifford, Margaret Pressler, Bill Spindle.

BY: CIPHER STAFF

For the last nearly four years, Cipher News has covered the global energy transition with an eye on the possible and a clear-eyed perspective.

Below, Cipher’s editorial team reflects on the past four years and looks out to what might come next for clean energy.

Anca Gurzu

I joined Cipher in February 2022, just a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine. Energy security skyrocketed to the top of the European Union’s agenda out of fear that Russia, at the time the bloc’s largest natural gas supplier, could turn off the tap.

One takeaway for me from my time at Cipher is that public support for clean energy is crucial. The lack of a strong social narrative to help people buy into a speedy energy transition risks hampering our ability to act swiftly to address climate change.

Jillian Mock

In August 2022, the United States Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the country’s most ambitious climate law to date.
 
It was a hopeful moment; the energy transition felt inevitable and was gaining momentum. Now, key provisions in the IRA have been repealed or revised.

There have been more twists and turns in this energy transition road than I expected. But Cipher’s astute perspective has helped me see the bigger picture. The energy transition has never been simple and straightforward, even when it seemed that way.

Amena H. Saiyid

Administrations come and go, but the job of a journalist covering federal policy is never done.
 
While parts of the IRA have unraveled, there is still so much for a reporter like me to cover. Litigation will challenge efforts to roll back clean energy progress. The composition of Congress will change.
 
I believe American manufacturers and developers like those I met while reporting for Cipher will find a way to navigate the tariffs and penalties thrown their way. When and how they do is another tale to tell.

Bill Spindle

In the past few years, the real underlying drivers of an energy transition have been revealed: economics and security.

The collective desire to avoid rapid climate change has factored in only on the margins, even as awareness of the threat has grown.

The problem, from a climate perspective, is that time is of the essence.

Cat Clifford

I came to the climate beat through my role as an entrepreneurship reporter. Talking to scientists about how they discover new processes that don’t generate greenhouse gases is wildly inspiring.

But those scientific solutions depend on the political machinations in Washington, D.C. to be deployed at scale.

The story of scientific development is optimistic; it’s hopeful. But with partisan politics in the mix, the pace of progress can be absolutely disheartening.

Margaret Pressler

When I was about 10 years old, I vividly remember seeing a dump truck emit a massive plume of black smoke and soot. I was instantly struck by anguish so intense I almost cried.

That sense of dismay had more recently tilted toward anger.

But when I joined Cipher a little over a year ago, my perspective changed. Cipher’s mission was infused with hope, highlighting the groups and individuals trying to fix this climate mess.

They need more support. On behalf of the kids we all once were, and all the kids yet to be, I hope we can give it to them.

Read this article and share it on Cipher’s website.

Lunchtime Reads and Hot Takes

The Cipher team shares some of our favorite sources for energy and climate news. We hope you’ll consider adding them to your media diet!

Amy’s pick: Canary Media
Canary Media delivers 1) top news 2) emerging trends & 3) surprising quirks. Their work is free to read — rare for deeply reported journalism — though it’s the kind of work that’s worth supporting. The reporters, who have been covering this space for decades, don’t just report from behind a desk — they occasionally get out into the field. That’s essential for a story that’s unfolding around us.

Amena’s pick: Heatmap News
Heatmap News is my choice for its out-of-the-box approach to reporting climate stories. The reporters cover what is on most people's minds and no subject is taboo. I especially loved their in-depth coverage on why communities are opposing renewables, why wind and solar need tax credits if they are so cheap and why wonky LCOEs don't work.

Anca’s pick: Reuters
I’ve often relied on Reuters’ energy and climate coverage to bring me the freshest news on my beat, especially from Europe. As a news agency, they are on top of not only the news coming out of Brussels, but also from across member countries. Fact-based and timely.

Bill’s pick: Bloomberg Green
Bloomberg Green, the arm of the far larger Bloomberg Business News that covers climate solutions, is one of the most comprehensive and useful news sources out there. The division's coverage benefits from the larger news group's intensive coverage of energy markets, which helps keep Bloomberg's coverage of the energy transition pragmatic and useful.

Jillian’s pick: Inside Climate News
Inside Climate News is an excellent nonprofit publication that covers climate impacts and research as well as clean energy on both the national and local levels. Their stories are always deeply reported and free to read!

Cat’s pick: Experts on LinkedIn
I find it invaluable to hear directly from leading experts — unfiltered, in their own words. LinkedIn is amazing for that, if you follow the right people. Some of the essential voices in climate and energy, in my opinion, include Jesse Jenkins at Princeton University, former top Energy Department official Jigar Shah, Terra Rogers at Clean Air Task Force, International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol and chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy Katharine Hayhoe.

More of what we're reading:

• Floodlight
• Latitude Media
• HEATED

Amid evolving politics, cleantech financing reaches watershed moment

Source: International Energy Agency • Chinese state-owned banks are not included.

BY: BILL SPINDLE

Money is the key to the energy transition, both the overall sum and how it gets allocated.

Today, a greater share is being invested into clean power sources compared to just a few years ago, but less is flowing to new cleantech ideas and startups.

The biggest lenders and investors, including major banks, insurance companies and mutual funds, are moving steadily into the huge infrastructure projects that are now driving much of the energy transition, according to the International Energy Agency. These big players are proving particularly suited to the sorts of large-scale financing many energy projects require.

Meanwhile, smaller start-ups are fighting the ups and downs of venture capital cycles that fund riskier bets. For big lenders and investors, the shift over the last five years, shown in the chart above, was propelled by government policy and social pressure to move toward clean energy as well as the significant commercial potential of renewables such as solar and wind power paired with batteries.

Click here to see a chart on venture capital funding and read the full story.

AND FINALLY...
Mountain power

I snapped this photo on a recent trail run on Rattlesnake Mountain, in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains outside Seattle. The run was no less wonderful because of the power lines I occasionally traversed. If you squint, you can see the Olympic mountains framed by the structure.

Each week, we feature a photo that is somehow related to energy, the thing we all need but don’t notice until it’s expensive or gone.

Editor’s note: In addition to supporting Cipher, Breakthrough Energy also supports and partners with a range of entities working to tackle climate change, including nonprofits, corporations, startups and research firms. For more information on Cipher’s editorial policy, click here.