Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Podcast

Shift Key Is Opening the Mail Bag

Answering your questions on AI and energy, the economics of solar, the Green New Deal’s legacy, and more.

A mailman.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Happy new year! On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse answer some of the questions they’ve received from readers throughout the year. Hot topics include: What happened to the Green New Deal, and is the Inflation Reduction Act part of its legacy? Should U.S. policy prioritize solar manufacturing or solar deployment? And how can normal people keep AI-driven data centers from blowing up the grid?

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.

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:

Jesse Jenkins: If you build a tariff wall around America and you say, You must buy American-made panels or pay a huge tariff, we could build a domestic solar manufacturing sector, but it would by no means be required to be globally competitive. And if you were to remove those protections, it would probably immediately collapse. […] If you want to, you have a competitive agenda, you need to be developing a particular type of industry that can be competitive. And I think that Michael’s question hints that maybe that’s not that important in the case of solar because it’s just not a very high-margin business. It’s kind of a bad business to be in. There’s consistent overcapacity and margins are thin, if not non-existent.

Robinson Meyer: Jenny Chase At BloombergNEF, who is the master of solar manufacturing, consistently describes it as one of the worst businesses in the world because these Chinese manufacturers — and now, more broadly, these Chinese and Southeast Asian manufacturers — are just constantly competing each other out of business.

I will say, I want to attach an asterisk to globally competitive, right? There’s like a B part to that, which is, do you think dominating in this industry is going to create know-how that allows you to dominate future technologies we don’t understand yet?

Jenkins: Yeah, are there general-purpose manufacturing techniques or core technology components here that you think are going to be useful in a variety of other sectors? I think that’s true.

I look at batteries, for example, as a critical general-purpose technology for the 21st century, right? Like, good batteries are going to be in everything, and so the ability to produce those and to continue to innovate and be at the frontier there, it’s important to national defense. It’s important to the transportation sector. It’s important to consumer products. You know, it’s just a critical platform technology, and a lot of the innovations in material science and electrochemistry and other things that you need to develop for batteries have other broader applications in decarbonizing industry and producing other products.

So I think that’s a good example of a case where, even if you’re a little behind the technology or frontier, there’s a lot of value to trying to catch up there for, for broader reasons.

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Intersolar & Energy Storage North America is the premier U.S.-based conference and trade show focused on solar, energy storage, and EV charging infrastructure. To learn more, visit intersolar.us.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Politics

New GOP Budget Bill Guts Decades-Old Fuel Economy Rules for Cars and Trucks

The Senate’s reconciliation bill essentially repeals the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, abolishing fines for automakers that sell too many gas guzzlers.

An elephant with a gas pump trunk.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A new provision in the Senate reconciliation bill would neuter the country’s fuel efficiency standards for automakers, gutting one of the federal government’s longest-running programs to manage gasoline prices and air pollution.

The new provision — which was released on Thursday by the Senate Commerce Committee — would essentially strip the government of its ability to enforce the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, or CAFE standards.

Keep reading...Show less
Hotspots

Fox News Takes on ‘Farm Wars’ Solar Attacks

And more of the week’s top news about renewable energy conflicts.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Nassau County, New York – Opponents of Equinor’s offshore Empire Wind project are now suing to stop construction after the Trump administration quietly lifted its stop-work order.

  • The lawsuit filed in federal court argues that the government violated the Administrative Procedures Act by allowing work to continue without “a factual basis for the reinstatement” or studies ordered by President Trump about the ecological impacts of offshore wind.
  • I personally struggle with how to read this lawsuit and would recommend our readers expect the project to continue construction unless a surprise comes in court proceedings. While the order may have facially been lifted “arbitrarily,” it was also put in place arbitrarily – which would’ve been the basis of litigation against the stop-work order had it been filed.

2. Somerset County, Maryland – A referendum campaign in rural Maryland seeks to restrict solar development on farmland.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Q&A

U.S. Offshore Wind Investment is Essentially Dead, Analyst Says

A conversation with Biao Gong of Morningstar

The Fight's Q and A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is with Biao Gong, an analyst with Morningstar who this week published an analysis looking at the credit risks associated with offshore wind projects. Obviously I wanted to talk to him about the situation in the U.S., whether it’s still a place investors consider open for business, and if our country’s actions impact the behavior of others.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow