The US and European Union took the next steps to formalize their trade pact, detailing plans that could reduce tariffs on European automobiles within weeks while opening the door to new potential discounts for steel and aluminum. The joint statement issued Thursday advances the preliminary deal announced a month ago, by including specific benchmarks for the EU to secure its promised sectoral tariff discounts on cars, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, as well as new commitments to cooperate on economic security matters, food standards and digital trade. President Donald Trump has repeatedly praised the sweeping US-EU trade framework, extolling it as “a big deal” in a Monday White House meeting with foreign leaders including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  The deal provides predictability and “delivers for our citizens & companies, and strengthens transatlantic relations,” von der Leyen said in a post on the social-media platform X. The development underscores the nature of trade talks under Trump, with some initial, broad pronouncements of deals giving way to weeks – or more – of work to hammer out detailed agreements. Many of them are also tied to sweeping policy changes that could take time to materialize. For example, Trump already imposed a flat 15 percent rate on most European goods – half the 30 percent he’d previously threatened. But the US promise to extend that lower levy to autos and auto parts now hinges on the EU formally introducing a legislative proposal to eliminate a host of its own tariffs on US industrial goods and provide “preferential market access” for some US seafood and agricultural products. Car Relief The statement outlines choreographed action on both sides of the Atlantic, with the US codifying reduced auto tariffs once the EU “formally introduces the necessary legislative proposal to enact” its own promised tariff reductions. The discounted 15 percent tariffs on

Hackers linked to the Russian government have been exploiting a vulnerability in Cisco networking devices to target critical infrastructure organizations, the FBI said on Wednesday. “In the past year, the FBI detected the actors collecting configuration files for thousands of networking devices associated with US entities across critical infrastructure sectors,” the bureau said in an alert. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency lists energy among 16 critical infrastructure sectors. The hackers, whom the FBI linked to the Russian Federal Security Service’s Center 16, have been taking advantage of a bug in Cisco’s IOS software, tracked as CVE-2018-0171, to execute arbitrary code on unpatched and end-of-life network switches made by Cisco and Rockwell Automation. In some cases, the attackers modified configuration files to gain access to the devices and conduct reconnaissance focused on “protocols and applications commonly associated with industrial control systems,” according to the FBI. FSB, aka Berserk Bear, Dragonfly The FSB’s Center 16, which has conducted operations that researchers track using the names “Berserk Bear” and “Dragonfly,” has spent more than a decade penetrating computer systems by exploiting networking devices’ use of unencrypted protocols, the FBI said. Cisco researchers on Wednesday published their own account of the Russia-linked group, which they call Static Tundra. The group focuses on telecommunications, education and manufacturing organizations around the world, Cisco said, “with victims selected based on their strategic interest to the Russian government,” mostly in Ukraine and its allies. Both the FBI and Cisco linked the FSB’s Center 16 to the SYNful Knock malware, which Google detected in four countries, including Ukraine, in 2015. Cisco said the group’s operations against Ukrainian targets have increased significantly since Moscow expanded its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “Static Tundra was observed compromising Ukrainian organizations in multiple verticals,” Cisco said, “as opposed to previously more limited,

Thermal and renewable energy generating facilities in the PJM Interconnection have surplus interconnection capacity that could support about 153 GW of solar, wind and storage, according to a working paper released by University of California, Berkeley, researchers earlier this month. However, the loss of Inflation Reduction Act clean energy tax credits reduces the total renewable energy and storage potential that could economically be built using the surplus capacity to about 106 GW, according to the study. PJM had a peak load of about 160 GW on June 23, during a heat wave. The analysis comes as PJM has been warning it may lack sufficient power supplies to meet growing electric demand, mainly driven by data center development. Taking advantage of existing, but little-used, interconnection capacity could allow PJM to meet its near-term needs with solar and storage, which can be built within two years compared with up to about seven years for a gas-fired power plant, according to Umed Paliwal, one of the report’s authors and a senior scientist at Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. “We need firm capacity in the PJM grid in the next three to four years,” Paliwal said Tuesday. PJM has about 52 GW of thermal power plants with 15% capacity factors — a measure of how often a power plant runs — as well as 25 GW of solar and wind projects, which operate at 19% and 16% capacity factors, respectively, leaving significant amounts of unused interconnection capacity at those sites, according to the study. The underused points of interconnection at the thermal plants could support about 74 GW of solar and 5 GW of wind by 2030, according to the study. Also, adding about 23 GW of 6-hour battery storage at existing renewable energy sites could support an additional 28 GW of solar

Dive Brief: Managed charging programs can turn flexible electric vehicle loads into a grid resource capable of generating $30 billion in annual utility savings, according to research from ev.energy, a managed charging provider in the United States, and The Brattle Group. Each actively managed vehicle can create up to $575 in avoided costs for utilities, leading to a 10% reduction in all customer electric bills by 2035 — whether they own an EV or not, according to the report. Programs that include a vehicle-to-grid bidirectional charging component could more than double the benefits. While bidirectional programs are still grappling with technical and policy challenges, managed charging is ready for full deployment, ev.energy CEO Nick Woolley said in an interview. “From a regulatory perspective, we don’t need to do more pilots. We need to scale these programs,” he said. Dive Insight: Demand from growing EV adoption is beginning to show up on the electric grid, creating simultaneous opportunities and hurdles for utilities, Woolley said. Absent a proactive approach to managing the demand, power companies will face premature transformer failures, require emergency system upgrades and see customer bills rise higher, according to the report. With managed charging, they can create a more decentralized, optimized and affordable grid. “The biggest source of demand growth is going to be electric vehicles on the energy system in the 2030s, and that really means, from a utility perspective, that if they don’t control and manage that resource, they could end up building lots of expensive additional generation to meet the demand,” Woolley said. Last year, an NREL report looking out to 2050 noted that “EVs are expected to be the largest source of electricity demand growth, and will require investments in generation, transmission, and distribution systems.” It also said that smart integration of EVs “can strengthen the grid by providing

Libya’s eastern parliament is poised to let Turkey explore for energy in the North African nation’s waters, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be a dramatic about-face that’s the latest sign of warming ties between Ankara and the region. The House of Representatives in Benghazi is set to vote in the coming weeks on the 2019 pact that set out the terms of an exploration agreement, said people in Turkey and Libya familiar with the deliberations. Most obstacles to the accord have been removed, they said, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. The war-torn OPEC member is split between rival administrations in Benghazi and the western capital, Tripoli. The latter has strong relations with Turkey and already supports the deal, but staunch opposition from the east – where military commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army holds sway – has hitherto prevented its enactment. If approved, the agreement could kickstart oil and gas exploration by Turkish ships in a swathe of territory between Crete and Turkey, reinforcing Ankara’s claims in the eastern Mediterranean. That risks inflaming a dispute with Greece and Cyprus, which accuse Turkey of a bid for dominance in contested waters.  Eastern Libya’s change of tack speaks to a new detente between Turkey and Haftar, who fought on opposing sides of a months-long battle for the Libyan capital in 2019 and 2020. Turkey militarily backed a previous Islamist-leaning government in Tripoli that Haftar – who counted the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia among his allies – unsuccessfully sought to overthrow. A United Nations-supported peace drive installed a new premier, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, but has failed to mend the split. The Tripoli-based government and the east have periodic spats over revenue from Africa’s largest oil reserves and control of vital state institutions, although there’s

Emergency order minimizes the risk of power outages and addresses critical grid security issues in the Midwestern region of the United States. WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an emergency order to minimize the risk of power outages and address critical grid security issues in the Midwestern region of the United States. Secretary Wright’s order directs the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), in coordination with Consumers Energy, to ensure that the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in West Olive, Michigan remains available for operation. Additionally, MISO is directed to take every step to minimize cost to the American people. Since DOE’s original order was issued on May 23, the Campbell plant has proven critical to MISO’s operations, operating regularly during periods of high energy demand and low levels of intermittent energy production. The Campbell Plant was scheduled to shut down on May 31, which is 15 years before the end of its scheduled design life. “The United States continues to face an energy emergency, with some regions experiencing more capacity constraints than others. With electricity demand increasing, we must put an end to the dangerous energy subtraction policies embraced by politicians for too long,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “This order will help ensure millions of Americans can continue to access affordable, reliable, and secure baseload power regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.” As outlined in DOE’s Grid Reliability Evaluation, power outages could increase by 100 times in 2030 if the U.S. continues to take reliable power offline. The emergency conditions that led to the issuance of the original order persist. This order is in effect beginning on August 21, 2025, and continuing until November 19, 2025.  BACKGROUND: The May 2025 NERC Summer Reliability Assessment referenced a Seasonal Outlook issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on April 17, 2025, which