Today: A renewables project in Bavaria is harnessing high temperatures from deep beneath the earth to provide a community with warmth in the winter and power in the summer; widely cited climate-change study retracted; the "chemtrails" conspiracy dogging the battle against drought.

In chilly Bavaria, a hot new geothermal technology is primed to power the town of Geretsried, WSJ Pro Sustainable Business's Clara Hudson writes.

Canadian energy company Eavor Technologies is sourcing heat from deep beneath the ground to warm buildings and convert into electricity. The company said it is now putting electricity on the grid for commercial use—the first time its novel “closed loop” technology is being used commercially.

A traditional geothermal project requires drilling down into an aquifer and drawing up hot water or steam to generate power or heat. But the Canadian company’s closed-loop technology works by sending water straight down a drilled well, which then branches out into a dozen horizontal wells.

Eavor CEO Mark Fitzgerald said the temperatures deep underground heat the water before it returns to the surface via a separate vertical well in a process that works like a “big radiator.” The heat is then harvested in a plant on the surface before the same water is sent back down the first well.

A benefit of the new technology is that it doesn’t use a lot of resources. The project doesn’t need to find a continuous source of new water, and as hot water naturally rises up the well, the entire system pumps itself.

• America has an effectively limitless supply of energy waiting to be tapped, right beneath the feet of its citizens. (WSJ)
• Geothermal energy has support from the Trump administration but is in short supply of experts as the industry seeks to expand. (WSJ)
• Fervo Energy is building a large geothermal project in Utah, backed by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures. (WSJ)

A widely cited study on economic damage from climate change was retracted earlier this week following criticism from peers, The Wall Street Journal's Aylin Woodward and Ed Ballard report.

The research, published last year in the journal Nature, projected that the world’s economic output would decline 62% by 2100 under a high-carbon emissions scenario. The estimate was much more severe than other forecasts, prompting scrutiny of the underlying data.

The study has been cited by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, the World Bank and the Network for Greening the Financial System, a coalition of central banks from which the Federal Reserve withdrew this year.

However, after it was published, other researchers found that economic data from one country—Uzbekistan— had skewed the results. Without Uzbekistan, the 2100 damage forecast fell to 23%, not 62%. 

A cloud-seeding startup that got an early boost from billionaire Peter Thiel is using drones and AI-enhanced weather modeling to create rain with more precision. The company's goal is to use expanded data collection and a fleet of drones piloted from the ground to do this more efficiently.

But an intractable problem keeps getting in the way: the conspiracy theory that the government is manipulating the weather, the Journal's Kris Maher writes.

A small but growing faction of Americans believes the government and companies that collaborate with it are spraying toxic chemicals from jets, creating white “chemtrails” to poison the population or for other nefarious purposes. A related theory holds that the government is secretly releasing chemicals to block the sun and fight climate change.

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that neither is occurring. Yet online influencers and politicians are amplifying the theories.

Tell me what you think: Send me your feedback and suggestions at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com or reply to any newsletter. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up here.

• U.S. Steel plans to resume steelmaking at an Illinois plant where the Trump administration intervened to keep production going. (WSJ)
   
• Norwegian energy giant Equinor has made two new gas discoveries in the North Sea, its largest discoveries so far this year. (WSJ)
   
• The European Union introduced a $3.5 billion package to help member states secure critical raw materials. (WSJ)
   
• Hindering renewable energy projects risks slowing the AI boom and could exacerbate rising electricity prices. (Bloomberg)
   
• The Arab region is being pushed to its limits by intense heatwaves and severe droughts, as it warms at twice the global average. (FT)
   
• Climate-driven changes in Mediterranean grain trade mitigated famine but introduced the Black Death to medieval Europe. (Nature)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send comments to bureau chief Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and reporters Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com and Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at perrycp, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.