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Rob and Jesse talk with former Ford economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick.
Jesse and Heatmap deputy editor Jillian Goodman talk Canadian tariffs with Rory Johnston.
Rob and Jesse talk with Wharton’s Benjamin Keys, then dig into Trump’s big Day One.
Rob and Jesse go deep on the universe’s smallest molecule.
Rob and Jesse talk all things solar, steel, and cement with CREA’s Lauri Myllyvirta.
Answering your questions on AI and energy, the economics of solar, the Green New Deal’s legacy, and more.
Jesse hosts a panel discussion at the annual meeting of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
The rise of artificial intelligence and the associated expansion of data centers is driving surging demand for new power supply. Earlier this fall at the annual meeting of Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Jesse sat down with a panel of experts to discuss how society can meet the growing energy demands of AI while staying on track broader decarbonization efforts.
How will we power the growing demand from AI and data centers? What role can nuclear power really play? Will AI lock us into a new generation of gas power plants? Are regulators prepared for what's coming? Jesse dives into all this and more with Allison Clements, former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Matt DeNichilo, partner at energy investment firm ECP, and Lucia Tian, head of clean energy and decarbonization technologies at Google.
Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Rob is off this week.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from the conversation:
Allison Clements: FERC, the agency, which, I was one of five commissioners, has jurisdiction over what resources sign up for and retire from participating on the grid. And over the last decade, two decades, what has happened is, as this 1.5 terawatts of generation have gotten in line, it’s just overwhelmed the interconnection system. The interconnection processes weren’t designed for anything other than central station, dispatchable, most recently gas plants, combined cycle gas plants, peaking plants, closer to load, you don’t need as much network upgrades.
There’s lots of room on the grid because there was an investment in the grid many decades ago. But now we’ve got this situation where there’s all these resources who want to sign up, and they can’t get on. In fact, this has been going on for a long time. And most of the supply resources waiting to get on today do have site control, do have the financial and commercial readiness. There’s some that we’re still clearing out from the days of the Wild West, where people would just sign up six interconnection applications and see what happened, which would cause a lot of problems for everybody else when they would drop out of those lines.
So, what do we do about it? FERC has passed a couple of different rules to clean up regional transmission planning. A comment about planning during this morning’s session that utilities plan so much — well, if we had been planning for an increasingly electrified economy 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, we would have a lot more transmission, a lot more space on the grid to give access to these resources.
We have taken action as an agency to try and fix that through one rule. We’ve also taken action as an agency to try and fix the interconnection lines themselves through some nuts and bolts requirements to make it harder to get through, so you don’t come until you’re ready to go. But those rules and policy changes that are very positive aren’t going to have impact for, let’s say, five years, seven years. I mean, the reality is we’re not going to be picking new transmission lines from these processes we’ve developed until at least 2029.
2024 — what do we do for the next five years, right? Even these really exciting new deals with SMR, advanced geothermal, we’re looking in the 2030 timeline. Well, the existing grid is really inefficient, and if we can use AI to improve it, that would be really, really important in validating and making this a positive cycle of affirmation.
The last thing I’ll say is, what are those inefficiencies? The lines between regions, the lines between PJM, which is the region we’re sitting in today, a grid operator, and the New York State grid operator, and the New England grid operator at the interties, the transfers, are very inefficient and they’re often counter to good economics. We have no hardware and software solutions, grid-enhancing technologies, advanced transmission technologies that can automatically double existing capacity, or existing room, extra room on the grid. We have surplus interconnection. We have the opportunity to put more resources behind existing points of interconnection and use that system more efficiently. So, the reality is to solve the power for AI, we need the AI to come back and help us do it.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
Rob sits down in New York with the outgoing head of America’s energy apparatus.
Jennifer Granholm has long been one of the most interesting figures in the Democratic Party. A former federal prosecutor, she was the governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011, leading the state during the Great Recession and subsequent auto bailout. Since 2021, she has been the 16th U.S. Secretary of Energy. While there, she has overseen the department’s transformation from an R&D-focused agency to an aspiring engine of industrial strategy.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob sits down with Secretary Granholm in person in New York to conduct an exit interview, of sorts. What climate policies is she most proud of — and what does she hope Democrats do better next time? What does she wish that Democrats understood about fossil fuels? And what does she think the outlook for clean energy is in the years to come?
Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Jesse is off this week.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Robinson Meyer: And so one big question I have is like, are we going to learn in the next few years whether these are actual concerns to these folks and they want to preserve these programs? Because it turns out, this is how you would try to create an EV industry in the U.S. Or do they really just care about oil and gas and their concerns with supply chains, with mineral supply chains, are just kind of a tissue to cover up larger oil and gas concerns?
Jennifer Granholm: I mean, obviously they’re very pro fossil fuels. We know that. But I will say all of the rhetoric has been about all of the above, an all of the above strategy. I mean everybody from Doug Burgum — I mean, all of these Republicans on the Energy Committee, they’ve all said that. So it just would be strange to turn your back on everything that you have said all of this time.
And I don’t even think, honestly, I can — This is what I would say: I think that the Trump administration, it seems, what do I know? I haven’t talked to them personally, but I, it seems from all I can, they want to reshore manufacturing. So if it’s not, if you eliminate the Inflation Reduction Act, you got to replace it with something that’s going to attract all of that investment. There has to be some industrial strategy. Otherwise you’re just ceding the territory to China, which is the thing you’re complaining about. So if you don’t like an incentive-based strategy, which is really what the Inflation Reduction Act is, I see he wants to put in a tariff-based strategy, if you just want to do all sticks. I’m not sure that’s good for the economy overall, but a blend of carrots and sticks, I’m sure most people would say are important. And so, you know, maybe you call it something else, but you got to get in a game, because otherwise our economic competitors are only too happy to see that happen. Can I tell you a quick story?
Meyer: Yes, we have a little bit of time. This is what this is for.
Granholm: So when I was finished being governor, I went to China to see what China was doing in this clean energy space, because they were cornering the market on a lot of these technologies, solar in particular. At the time, I went with Securing America’s Future Energy, an organization that is focused on competitiveness in this clean space. And we went to a presentation by a bunch of mayors in China, mayors of provinces. And as we were standing there watching the presentation, one of the mayors stands next to me, and he says, “So when do you think the United States is going to get a national clean energy strategy?” And I said, “Oh, I don’t know … Congress …” And he looks at me, and he gets a big grin on his face, and he says, “Take your time.”
Because of course, they see our passivity as their opportunity, right? So this is why what we’ve done, what these laws have done, what the president has done, is so amazing. So I get that you may have to put a different spin on whatever the new administration wants to do, but ultimately, you have to have policies like these if we’re going to be successful in reshoring manufacturing.
You can find a full transcript of the episode here.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
