Today: White House plan will involve an emergency auction within the country’s biggest power market; JPM climate chief says there is growth for companies in healthy soil; Equinor can resume work on Empire Wind.

Welcome back: The Trump administration is due to propose that the nation’s largest power grid operator hold an emergency auction in which tech companies would bid to have new power plants built, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Wall Street Journal's Amrith Ramkumar, Scott Patterson and Jennifer Hiller report that the directive, expected today, would be an unprecedented attempt by the government to check rising electricity prices within PJM Interconnection, a 13-state power market spanning from New Jersey to Kentucky. The build-out of data centers there in response to the AI boom is straining the grid’s capacity and has resulted in substantially higher costs in several of the grid operator’s recent power auctions.

Data centers require city-sized amounts of electricity to train AI models. One data center can devour as much power as 1,000 Walmart stores, and an AI search can use 10 times more energy than a google search. Desperate for electricity, some data centers are building their own power plants.

Meanwhile, tech companies are fighting a potential solution: disconnecting the data centers from the grid when electricity is in short supply.

• A political proposal to encourage power plant construction for AI data centers caused shifts in electricity stocks. (Barron's)
• Tech giants are sick of waiting around for electricity. But locking in future power means taking on more upfront risk. (WSJ)
• Microsoft to pay higher utility bills for its U.S. data centers powering AI models, a pledge that drew praise from President Trump. (WSJ)
• Google buys 1.2 GW of carbon-free energy from Clearway to power data centers across U.S. (ESG Today)
• Artificial intelligence doesn’t have to be such a power guzzler. Here’s how to make it less hungry. (WSJ)

The global head of climate advisory at J.P. Morgan says that agricultural and food businesses are finding innovative ways to manage soil health, and avoid the financial harm they could face by neglecting it, WSJ Pro Sustainable Business's Clara Hudson reports.

A report out today from J.P. Morgan, co-authored by Kapnick, says that if left unmanaged “degrading soil health and water supply can weaken the very foundation needed to farm.” Companies are looking to invest in new farming practices, such as regenerative agriculture, to offset potential harm, the report said. Regenerative agriculture can encompass everything from avoiding over-tilling to reducing synthetic chemicals.

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Work on New York’s Empire Wind project can resume after a federal judge said he wasn’t convinced construction had to stop immediately.

At a hearing in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said Empire Wind—being developed by Norwegian company Equinor—proved it would “suffer irreparable harm” by the stoppage ordered by the Trump administration last month, Clara Hudson reports. 

Earlier this week, a federal judge in the same courthouse approved a request from Danish renewable company Orsted for a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s pause on its Revolution Wind project, which is being built off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Both court rulings will be seen as a blow to the administration’s efforts to stymie the offshore wind industry in the U.S. In December, the government paused the federal leases for five East Coast wind projects, citing classified national security risks.

Dominion Energy has a similar hearing set for today.

• Ford and BYD are in talks over a partnership in which the U.S. carmaker would buy batteries from the Chinese auto company. (WSJ)
   
• Tesla will discontinue the one-time payment option for its Full Self-Driving system after Feb. 14, making it subscription-only. (WSJ)
   
• Mission Produce will acquire Calavo Growers in a $483 million deal, combining two major avocado producers. (WSJ)
   
• Levi’s is reframing repair as a missing life skill, not a niche green behavior, as it advances circularity and Gen Z brand loyalty. (Trellis)
   
• How much of the shipping industry could run on batteries is debated, but that there is a debate shows how rapidly batteries have improved. (WSJ)
   
• Maersk is looking at boosting the use of ethanol as a green fuel for its vessels, which could reduce its dependence on China. (FT)
   
• Global risk experts warned competition for resources is increasing the risk of geoeconomic confrontation. (Dow Jones Risk Journal)

• Note to readers: The Sustainable Business newsletter will not publish on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will be back in your inboxes on Wednesday.

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.