Sign In or Create an Account.

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

Podcast

The Early Lessons of Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’

Rob and Jesse sort through their feelings after Trump's second first month in office.

The White House.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Congress is still debating the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act, but the Trump administration has already torn up energy and climate policies across the federal government. It’s time to step back and try to take stock. How much damage has the Trump administration already done to decarbonization? What’s most worrying? What was going to happen anyway? And what might still be saved?

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse go agency by agency to understand the most important changes and try to understand the deeper agenda — including potential points of incoherence or disagreement. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.

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: I think one thing that is also, when you zoom out, is that this is the kind of broader incoherence of their agenda, right? So the U.S. is scheduled to gain a massive addition of new liquefied natural gas export terminals at the end of the Trump term — in the last two years of the Trump term. The Trump administration is quite keen to further expand that expansion and approve another set of terminals that would come on in the late 2020s and early 2030s.

I want to observe a few things about that. I think one thing is that the Trump administration is, to quote a think tank analyst I was talking to recently, is pattern-matching to the late 2010s experience. The U.S. added LNG export capacity during the first Trump administration and gas prices didn’t go up because natural gas production in the U.S. basically scaled with export capacity.
 
We are going to significantly increase that again. I think we’re basically going to double LNG capacity toward the end of the Trump term. And they are basically assuming that the U.S. will just continue to scale gas extraction capacity at the same time that, presumably, they’re going to expand the power grid’s reliance on natural gas with their power policies. They’re really setting up an environment to be surprised by a natural gas price spike if their supposition is wrong, that the U.S. can’t just expand gas capacity in line with its export capacity.

Jesse Jenkins: Or even if it can expand it, it seems like the market needs higher prices to support that expansion. So maybe we can add enough supply to supply new LNG terminals, but we’ll do so at a higher domestic price because that’s what’s needed to get this production onto the market. Otherwise, it would already be there.

Meyer: And also, globally, natural gas prices are much higher than they are in the U.S. That’s one reason U.S. electricity prices are so cheap. If we build so much LNG that we hook our domestic natural gas market into global LNG markets, then like …

Jenkins: Prices become more volatile.

Meyer: Prices become more volatile, exactly.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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
Climate

AM Briefing: SCOTUS Greenlights Federal Firings

On federal layoffs, copper tariffs, and Texas flood costs

SCOTUS Greenlights Federal Firings
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Three people were killed in southern New Mexico after heavy rains on Tuesday caused floodingParts of the western Mediterranean Sea are 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than averageSearch operations are underway for 30 people missing in India’s Himachal Pradesh state following flash floods and landslides.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Supreme Court allows Trump administration to proceed with mass reduction of federal workforce

The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a lower court ruling that had blocked mass layoffs of federal workers, clearing the way for a significant reduction in the civil service. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, writing that the court had a “demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.” Technically, SCOTUS’ ruling is only temporary, and the case could eventually return for the court to consider at a later date, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor noting, “The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law.” But “in practice,” the court’s move allows President Trump to “pursue his restructuring plans, even if judges later determine that they exceed presidential power,” The New York Times writes.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Podcast

Shift Key Summer School: How Does a Power Plant Work?

Jesse and Rob go back to basics on the steam engine.

A power station.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Just two types of machines have produced the overwhelming majority of electricity generated since 1890. This week, we look at the history of those devices, how they work — and how they have contributed to global warming.

This is our second episode of Shift Key Summer School, a series of “lecture conversations” about the basics of energy, electricity, and the power grid for listeners of all backgrounds. This week, we dive into the invention and engineering of the world’s most common types of fossil- and nuclear-fueled power plants. What’s a Rankine cycle power station, and how does it use steam to produce electricity? How did the invention of the jet engine enable the rise of natural gas-generated electricity? And why can natural gas power plants achieve much higher efficiency gains than coal plants?

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Politics

Trump Opened a Back Door to Kill Wind and Solar Tax Credits

The Senate told renewables developers they’d have a year to start construction and still claim a tax break. Then came an executive order.

Trump burning a calendar.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Renewable energy advocates breathed a sigh of relief after a last-minute change to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act stipulated that wind and solar projects would be eligible for tax credits as long as they began construction within the next 12 months.

But the new law left an opening for the Trump administration to cut that window short, and now Trump is moving to do just that. The president signed an executive order on Monday directing the Treasury Department to issue new guidance for the clean electricity tax credits “restricting the use of broad safe harbors unless a substantial portion of a subject facility has been built.”

Keep reading...Show less