Today: While solar and wind provide domestic sources of energy, prices tethered to fossil fuels mean consumers likely will still feel the heat; U.N. body fights for relevance as it struggles to devise a deep sea mining code; the grid needs huge upgrades but no one knows who will pay for them.

Welcome back: Advocates for clean energy have pointed to the war in Iran as a reason to build out renewables, saying unlimited home-grown fossil-free fuel can help avoid price shocks and secure a domestic source of power. In practice, it’s a little more complicated than that, Yusuf Khan and Clara Hudson write for Dow Jones Risk Journal.

Take Spain for example. Renewable power makes up well over half of the country’s energy sources, and on some days can rise to nearly 70% of its power, according to Red Electrica, the country’s transmission system operator. For the country that’s a huge benefit, because it means it’s much less reliant on foreign sources of fossil fuels.

But Spain is also a big importer of liquified natural gas, and the price of LNG often determines the cost of energy for the country’s consumers, even if gas makes up a diminishing share of the country’s energy mix.

“Renewables help, but European power prices still track gas because it is often the marginal plant—the last plant needed to meet demand—which sets the price,” said Helen Senior, head of European power pricing, at Argus Media, a commodities data provider. In most power markets, natural gas acts as the last  source of energy needed to meet demand. As a result, its prices usually determine the overall price of electricity, even if other power sources dominate the market.

• An energy shock from the Middle East war is set to deliver a punishing economic blow to Europe, which had hoped for growth. (WSJ)
• American oil executives warned Trump officials that the Iran war’s disruption of the Strait of Hormuz will worsen the energy crisis. (WSJ)
• Higher energy prices might vex the economy, but for some U.S. states, they provide a financial boost that will help fix roads. (WSJ)

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.

​For most of Earth’s history there has been no need to govern the ocean floor. Considered more inhospitable than the dark side of the moon, the deep seabed has been largely left to its own devices.

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business's Yusuf Khan reports that this is about to change. As the race for critical minerals intensifies and underwater technology improves, the possibility of mining the ocean floor is fast becoming a probability. The question is: who’s in charge?

The U.N. body responsble for the world's ocean floors is the International Seabed Authority, based in Jamaica. For more than two decades, U.N. delegates have been descending on the Caribbean island to hash out rules governing the seafloor. And yet, they still haven’t managed to agree on a mining code. Its failure to deliver has helped create regulatary uncertainty.

Delegates have been meeting with the aim of finalizing a code that would allow companies to start extracting minerals from the ocean floor. Their meetings, however, risk falling into irrelevance as the U.S. under President Trump and at least one mining startup threaten to go it alone.

The U.S. power industry is embarking on an AI-driven expansion of the electric grid, a build-out that promises to be one of the most expensive since World War II, the Journal's Katherine Blunt and Jennifer Hiller write. 

President Trump has sought to minimize the extent to which consumers will be forced to pay for new data centers that power the artificial-intelligence boom, but utilities and regulators warn that those measures won’t fully shield consumers from costs associated with long-needed upgrades to the system for transmitting power across the U.S.

Utilities around the country are planning to spend tens of billions of dollars to build new high-voltage transmission lines to carry electricity from power plants over long distances. Many companies this year announced plans to substantially increase capital expenditures to build the new capacity, in large part to serve demand from data centers.

Now, as the AI race propels significant electricity-demand growth for the first time in decades, companies are seeking to overcome the hurdles to supply data centers, some of which use the same amount of power as a midsize city. They say the investments are needed to bring new power plants online and ease bottlenecks on the existing grid.

• Orion Resource Partners raises $2.2 billion for new fund dedicated to financing critical minerals mining projects. (WSJ)
   
• Octopus Energy Generation signs $60 million carbon removal deal with nature-based solutions provider Cultivo (ESG Today)
   
• Activists who led a boycott against Target over its DEI policy, claimed victory and said they would end their campaign. (WSJ)
   
• Exploding fuel infrastructure in Iran war has released toxic pollution that puts the health of millions of people at risk. (Bloomberg)
   
• Who would know from the negative headlines that the past year has been one of the best periods for renewable-energy stock funds? (Barron's)
   
• German ‘regret’: Steep costs continue to be paid for 2011 decision to scrap nuclear-power plants. (MarketWatch)
   
• The Norwegian government’s pension fund is notable for its sheer size and transparency on sustainability issues. (Trellis)
   
• ‘Exceptional’ wetness that brought widespread flooding to Europe points to climate change future, say scientists. (FT)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send your comments to editor 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.