Energy Empire

The United States produces almost no lithium of its own.

Not for lack of the stuff. There’s lithium in groundwater almost everywhere. But most of the industry’s growth over the past decade has come from hard rock mines, and most of that concentrate goes to China to be refined into something a battery can use.

Raef Sully is CEO of Lilac Solutions, which has spent ten years turning ion exchange into a way to pull lithium out of brine too dilute for conventional methods, and to make battery grade material on site rather than shipping it anywhere.

Their first commercial plant is on the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where the brine is some thirty times more dilute than the Chilean salt flats that supply much of the world’s lithium. It already has a buyer signed up for ten years and $100 million from the Department of Energy. What it doesn’t have yet is the final go-ahead to start building, which Sully hopes comes by the end of the year.

In this episode:

• A couple of wells instead of billions of gallons pumped into evaporation ponds

  
  

• Why the capital cost runs about half the incumbent method

  
  

• The ten years it took, and when they realized they’d have to build a plant themselves

  
  

• 150,000 tons of global demand in 2015, nearly 2 million now, and where analysts put 2035

  
  

• What the US Trade and Development Agency is paying for at a geothermal plant in Indonesia

  
  

• “Hard tech is hard because you’re building something real”

  
  

Links:

Energy Empire: https://energyempire.fm

The NEIS Center: https://neiscenter.org

Lilac Solutions: https://lilacsolutions.com

Lilac and Traxys ten-year agreement: https://lilacsolutions.com/news/lilac-and-traxys-announce-binding-10-year-offtake-agreement-for-great-salt-lake-lithium-production

DOE’s $100 million award for the Great Salt Lake project: https://lilacsolutions.com/news/us-department-of-energy-selects-lilac-solutions-for-100m-award-for-great-salt-lake-lithium-project

USTDA funding for the Indonesia pilot: https://lilacsolutions.com/news/ustda-funds-pilot-of-u-s-critical-mineral-recovery-technology-in-indonesia

Building clean energy industries has become an industrial strategy problem as much as a climate one.

Batteries, steel, critical minerals, grid equipment. Someone has to build the factories, secure the materials and find the capital, usually in industries where another country already has a twenty-year head start.

The New Industrialists is an eight-part series from Energy Empire, made in partnership with the New Energy Industrial Strategy (NEIS) Center and hosted by Jigar Shah and Sarah Ladislaw.

Both were inside the US government while America tried this. Jigar ran the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office from 2021 to 2025. Sarah is the NEIS Center’s founding director and was senior director for climate and energy at the National Security Council.

In this episode:

• China’s winners in electric vehicles, batteries and solar, and why they still aren’t very profitable

  
  

• What separates green industrial strategy from what Sarah calls new energy industrial strategy

  
  

• Why some governments can’t negotiate a power contract settled in dollars, and what USAID has to do with it

  
  

• Silicon Valley investors who won’t back anything that touches government, and the sectors that can’t exist without it

  
  

• “You don’t get to... say, no thanks, I’ll sit that one out”

  
  

Links:

Energy Empire: https://energyempire.fm 

The NEIS Center: https://neiscenter.org

Hydropower runs in 48 of 50 states and makes nearly a quarter of U.S. renewable power.

It also stores power. Pumped storage, which works like a giant water battery, holds about four-fifths of the grid’s utility-scale energy storage.

Yet U.S. hydro capacity has grown less than 3% since 2010. Slow licensing is a big reason why.

Today’s guest is Malcolm Woolf, president and CEO of the National Hydropower Association and former head of the Maryland Energy Administration.

In this episode:

• Hydro’s role after a blackout: 6% of U.S. power, but 40% of the grid’s restart capacity

• The 1910 generator Malcolm mistook for a brand-new one

• Why a hydro license can come with a bill for Forest Service roads hundreds of miles away, or a Boy Scout amphitheater

• Fish-safe turbines with a 99.9% survival rate, and a “fish cannon” that shoots fish over dams

• The national lab study projecting that climate change will raise U.S. hydro output by about 5%

• Why 97% of America’s dams make no power at all

Links:

Our website: https://www.energyempire.fm

National Hydropower Association: https://www.hydro.org

Whooshh fish passage video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z3ZyGlqUkA

S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds

Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas

Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

Election Day is tomorrow, and energy is on the ballot. Neil Chatterjee, who chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during President Trump’s first term, joins Jigar and Jamie for the final episode of our midterm series. Whatever happens tomorrow, he wants both parties to change course on energy.

For Neil, part of the fix is the Senate’s bipartisan permitting bill, which would help get more power onto the grid. It gets its first vote November 9, six days after the election. Republicans walked away from a permitting deal once they swept the 2024 election, and Neil worries Democrats could do the same if they have a big night.

In this episode:

• Neil and Jigar predict who wins the Senate

• The Ohio Senate race Neil sees as the biggest test for data centers on the ballot

• What it would take to pass the permitting bill before January, and the House committee where a few departing hardliners could kill it

• What each party needs to accept after the election: natural gas for Democrats, more than “drill, baby, drill” for Republicans

• How Neil convinced Ted Cruz that rooftop solar tax credits were “an America First type policy”

Links:

Our website: https://www.energyempire.fm

Neil and Michael Regan’s Fortune op-ed on regulating data centers: https://fortune.com/2026/10/23/data-center-mess-how-to-fix-bipartisan/

The Senate permitting bill: https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2026/9/whitehouse-capito-heinrich-lee-introduce-bipartisan-american-affordability-and-jobs-act-of-2026

Political Climate Podcast: https://www.politicalclimatepodcast.com

Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

Factories and gas pipelines vent heat into the air every day. Captured, that heat can produce clean electricity around the clock.

Today, the US gets less than 1 gigawatt of power from waste heat, but Department of Energy estimates put the potential at up to 15 gigawatts, enough to power more than 10 million homes. Other countries already put far more of their waste heat to work.

On this episode, Jigar is joined by Janice Tran and Marisa Sweeney. Janice is CEO and co-founder of Kanin Energy, a developer of waste heat to power and other industrial efficiency projects. Marisa is a principal on the Structured Finance team at S2G Investments, which led Kanin’s latest funding round. Both worked with Jigar at Generate Capital.

In this episode:

• How waste heat helped a university ride out a summer of sky-high power prices

• Why Europe has used its waste heat for decades while the US mostly vented it

• What kept American waste heat untapped long after the technology was proven

• Why banks would rather finance the 12th waste heat plant than the first

• The high school job at Walmart that came full circle for Janice

• “We have a goal to be the largest waste heat to power developer in the entire world.”

Links:

Our website: https://www.energyempire.fm

“Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?” by Amory Lovins (Foreign Affairs, 1976): https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1976-10-01/energy-strategy-road-not-taken

S2G Investments Structured Finance: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/strategy/structured-finance

S2G Investments report: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds

Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas

Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

Gas is up more than a dollar a gallon since the Iran war began, and diesel set an all-time record in September. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) says the president’s donors are profiting while everyone else pays more.

Smith explains what voters should listen for when a candidate promises to bring energy costs down, and why she voted against a data center bill Republicans are now campaigning on.

Part of Energy on the Ballot, our series on energy and the 2026 midterms.

In this episode:

• The heating aid program the White House wants to eliminate, and the St. Paul man it kept in his home

• “Don’t do data centers the dumb way,” and why nondisclosure agreements make neighbors so angry

• Why a senator from a mining state fought a Chilean-owned copper-nickel mine near the Boundary Waters

• What former Fed Chair Jerome Powell predicted about getting a mortgage in 10 or 15 years

• The campaign word Smith calls “a weird focus group word”

• Why Smith wants Democrats to show more “boldness” if they win back power

Links:

Our website: https://www.energyempire.fm

Sen. Smith’s request for a cost estimate of the 2025 tax law’s data center breaks: https://www.smith.senate.gov/u-s-senator-tina-smith-requests-cost-estimate-of-big-beautiful-bills-data-center-tax-incentives/

Sen. Smith’s report on the home insurance crisis: https://www.smith.senate.gov/u-s-senator-tina-smith-releases-new-report-on-solutions-to-the-home-insurance-crisis/

The Klobuchar-Smith letter on heating aid: https://www.smith.senate.gov/u-s-senators-amy-klobuchar-tina-smith-push-the-trump-administration-to-release-heating-assistance-funds-before-winter/

Gov. Spanberger on Making Data Centers Pay Their Fair Share: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/gov-spanberger-on-making-data-centers-pay-their-fair-share-energy-on-the-ballot

In the first half of this year, 86% of U.S. venture money went to AI. Climate venture funds have raised less than $1 billion, down from more than $10 billion in 2021.

This week’s guest, Andrew Beebe, is more optimistic than those numbers suggest. The generalist funds that piled into climate a few years ago drove up the price of startups, and now they’ve left. The investors and founders still here understand the market, and he thinks that makes this one of the best times yet to invest.

Andrew is a managing director at Obvious Ventures, which Twitter co-founder Ev Williams helped start in 2014. The firm has raised more than $1.3 billion across five main funds. Before joining, Andrew spent more than a decade in solar: his team built the array at Google’s headquarters, and he went on to become chief commercial officer at Suntech, then the world’s largest solar manufacturer.

In this episode:

• Andrew’s don’t-go-there list: battery chemistry, fusion, hydrogen, and sustainable aviation fuel

• Container ships that could cross the Pacific on battery alone, and how Maersk changed its mind

• Why a $200 million business is too small for a venture fund like Obvious

• What Andrew would have told Sheldon Kimber about Google’s offer for Intersect

• Solar robots that take a four-person crew from 200 panels a day to 900

• The board that told Andrew he was doing great when he asked to be replaced as CEO

Links

Our website: https://www.energyempire.fm
Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar
S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds
Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas
Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

About one in three homes and businesses in Australia have solar on the roof. The state governments there made it simple, with incentives, certified installers, and quick approvals. In the U.S., permits and inspections can add weeks or months before a system is switched on.

This episode’s guest, Audrey Zibelman, has held top energy jobs in both countries. She chaired New York’s Public Service Commission, then ran Australia’s power grid as CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Now she’s back in New York as its energy czar, chairing the board of NYSERDA, the state energy authority. The job comes with some of the highest home electricity prices in the country and a freeze on the biggest new data centers.

In this episode:

• The conservative prime minister who backed Australia’s grid plan with three words: “Electrons don’t vote”

• How Australia got homeowners to trust a government website to find a solar installer

• The adoption rate at which Australia’s government could stop pushing solar

• What Texas figured out about grid connections while other states keep running pilots

• Why utilities build the grid around its 25 worst hours a year

• The case for data centers small enough to fit on the grid

Links:

Our website: https://www.energyempire.fm

Pew’s distributed energy playbook: https://www.pew.org/-/media/assets/2026/04/distributed-energy-can-unleash-the-resilient-affordable-grid-of-the-future.pdf

New York’s data center Community Investment Framework: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-strongest-community-investment-framework-nation-protect-communities

Gov. Spanberger on Making Data Centers Pay Their Fair Share: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/gov-spanberger-on-making-data-centers-pay-their-fair-share-energy-on-the-ballot

Balcony Solar Costs $285. Why Is It Still So Hard to Get?: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/balcony-solar-costs-285-why-is-it-still-so-hard-to-get

Demand on ComEd’s grid barely moved from 2009 to 2022. Now the utility expects about 10 gigawatts of data centers to connect by around 2030, against an all-time peak of 23 gigawatts.

ComEd’s CEO, Gil Quiniones, wants to connect those data centers without raising everyone else’s bills. Rooftop solar and batteries, which many utilities have fought, are part of his plan.

Gil spent 16 years at Con Edison and more than a decade running the New York Power Authority. While he ran the Power Authority, he and Jigar worked on the state’s push to build the grid around energy that customers make and store at home.

In Chicago, he’s starting with the families who can least afford their bills. A pilot this winter will put solar and batteries in about 50 of their homes with no money down.

Gil thinks the setup could take about $70 off a monthly bill that typically runs $100 to $120.

Recorded live at Future Currence during Climate Week NYC.

In this episode:

• How deposits and letters of credit shrank ComEd’s list of serious data center requests from about 18 gigawatts to 10

• Why Jigar says a data center’s voluntary promise to power down in an emergency isn’t good enough

• What ComEd has to prove to regulators before it can build a new substation

• The 100 hours a year the grid is built for, and what using the rest of the year could do for bills

• Whether other utilities need a new state law to do what ComEd is doing

Links:

Future Currence: https://future.currence.ai

ComEd: https://www.comed.com

The Untapped Grid (Brattle Group): https://www.brattle.com/the-untapped-grid/

Illinois Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act: https://gov-pritzker-newsroom.prezly.com/gov-pritzker-signs-historic-clean-and-reliable-grid-affordability-act

More from Energy Empire:

The Cheapest Grid Is the One We Already Paid For: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/the-cheapest-grid-is-the-one-we-already-paid-for

Inside California’s Plan to Fix the Utility Business Model with Senator Josh Becker: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/inside-california-s-plan-to-fix-the-utility-business-model-with-senator-josh-becker

NVIDIA on Whether AI Can Fix Its Own Power Problem: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/nvidia-on-whether-ai-can-fix-its-own-power-problem-recorded-live-at-climate-week-nyc

Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

Ukraine has learned how to keep a power grid running while someone is trying to destroy it. Every country that imports oil now needs the same lessons.

Last winter Russia blew up power plants and substations, and Kyiv lost power every day. The fixes were concrete bunkers that let a substation take a direct hit, home batteries, a nuclear fleet kept running, and new wind and solar built in the middle of a war.

The Iran war has since shown every oil importer the same vulnerability. Countries won’t go back to sleep after this, and the map of who buys energy from whom is being redrawn.

Tim McDonnell is Semafor’s climate and energy editor and writes Semafor Energy, its twice-weekly newsletter. He lives in Kyiv, where the sirens go off all the time and some nights are spent in the metro. Getting out to report starts with an overnight train to Poland, because Ukraine still has no working airport.

The interview was recorded at Climate Week NYC on September 21. The intro and outro were recorded before the energy ceasefire Trump announced on October 11.

In this episode:

• The sirens, the metro at night, and why the air war over Kyiv is back to early-2022 levels

• How a substation wrapped in concrete takes a cruise missile and keeps working

• Why the free flow of oil through Hormuz that existed before February is probably gone for good

• The case that oil importers won’t “go back to sleep” once the Iran war ends

• Egypt’s six-month sprint into wind and solar after Iran sent gas prices up

• The “tourists” arriving in cleantech funding rounds, and whether that’s a bubble

Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar

S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds

Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas

Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products