It seems like these days every sentence that begins with "The Supreme Court..." finishes with truly appalling news -- another draconian ruling regarding privacy, guns, or basic, fundamental human rights. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to energy expert Alex Gilbert about a recent Supreme Court decision that many environmentalists were eyeing with dread. To Gilbert, though, things could have gone much, much worse in the West Virginia v. EPA case. We dive into the details of this ruling: its political ramifications, its practical implications, and what it suggests about this court's future environment-related decisions.

Narrator 00:01 This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

Alex Gilbert (AG) 00:11 If I were to have created the scenarios of my expected outcomes in this case, this outcome is actually better than my best-case outcome. When you look at what could have been done here, the fact that they took a case, they probably shouldn't have taken anyways, that was a sign that a lot of people were thinking of very significant changes were coming to environmental law.

Narrator 00:34 It seems like these days every sentence that begins with "The Supreme Court..." finishes with truly appalling news -- another draconian ruling regarding privacy, guns, or basic, fundamental human rights. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to energy expert Alex Gilbert about a recent Supreme Court decision that many environmentalists were eyeing with dread. To Gilbert, though, things could have gone much, much worse in the West Virginia v. EPA case. We dive into the details of this ruling: its political ramifications, its practical implications, and what it suggests about this court's future environment-related decisions.

Alex Wise (AW) 1:33 I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Alex Gilbert. Alex is the Director of Space and Planetary Regulations at Zeno Power. Alex, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

AG 1:43 Thanks so much for having me Alex. I appreciate the opportunity to return.

AW 1:46 Yes, it's been a while since we've had you. You're an expert in the energy field. This new venture of yours that you're engaged in Zeno Power. Why don't you quickly explain what the director of Space and Planetary regulations at Zeno Power does?

AG 2:02 Yeah, so we are developing commercial radioisotope power sources. It's similar to a nuclear battery, is the best way to think about it and it's what NASA historically has used to power some of their deep space missions like the Apollo missions, the Mars Rovers, the Voyager missions, and NASA has their systems, but there's a commercial space sector growing right now, and so we're developing. Commercial space nuclear systems to help enable new applications in space as well as some things on Earth as well - areas that are very remote, hard to power that need just a little bit of power to really do cool things.

AW 2:36 And there hasn't been any Supreme Court rulings that have affected your business lately, but I know that the rest of the country and a lot of the world has been on tenterhooks as these devastating Supreme Court decisions just roll in one by one. The latest was in the environment and I wanted to discuss. That with you, West Virginia versus the EPA. The headlines were that the Supreme Court handcuffed the EPA and the reaction of most people was not because the Supreme Court has been so destructive on so many issues this term in particular. Your take on this ruling was a little more optimistic though. Is that fair to say?

AG 03:21 Yeah, I think there was a lot of concern in the energy and climate policy world about this case. The fact that they took this case in the 1st place, as I'll talk about is really weird.