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
Energy

The Pentagon’s Rare Earths Deal Is Making Former Biden Officials Jealous

The multi-faceted investment is defense-oriented, but could also support domestic clean energy.

A rare earths mine.
Heatmap Illustration/MP Materials, Getty Images

MP Materials is the national champion of American rare earths, and now the federal government is taking a stake.

The complex deal, announced Thursday, involves the federal government acting as a guaranteed purchaser of MP Materials’ output, a lender, and also an investor in the company. In addition, the Department of Defense agreed to a price floor for neodymium-praseodymium products of $110 per kilogram, about $50 above its current spot price.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Economy

AM Briefing: A Second Wind for Lava Ridge?

On a new plan for an old site, tariffs on Canada, and the Grain Belt Express

Site of Idaho’s Lava Ridge Wind Project May Be Used for SMRs
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Phoenix will “cool” to 108 degrees Fahrenheit today after hitting 118 degrees on Thursday, its hottest day of the year so farAn extreme wildfire warning is in place through the weekend in ScotlandUniversity of Colorado forecasters decreased their outlook for the 2025 hurricane season to 16 named storms, eight hurricanes, and three major hurricanes after a quiet June and July.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump threatens 35% tariff on Canada

President Trump threatened a 35% tariff on Canadian imports on Thursday, giving Prime Minister Mark Carney a deadline of August 1 before the levies would go into effect. The move follows months of on-again, off-again threats against Canada, with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau having successfully staved off the tariffs during talks in February. Despite those earlier negotiations, Trump held firm on his 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, which will have significant implications for green manufacturing.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Climate Tech

The Software That Could Save the Grid

Or at least the team at Emerald AI is going to try.

Technology and power.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Emerald AI

Everyone’s worried about the ravenous energy needs of AI data centers, which the International Energy Agency projects will help catalyze nearly 4% growth in global electricity demand this year and next, hitting the U.S. power sector particularly hard. On Monday, the Department of Energy released a report adding fuel to that fire, warning that blackouts in the U.S. could become 100 times more common by 2030 in large part due to data centers for AI.

The report stirred controversy among clean energy advocates, who cast doubt on that topline number and thus the paper’s justification for a significant fossil fuel buildout. But no matter how the AI revolution is powered, there’s widespread agreement that it’s going to require major infrastructure development of some form or another.

Keep reading...Show less