How did life first form on Earth? What does entropy have to do with the origins of mammalian life — or the creation of the modern economy? And what chemical process do people, insects, Volkswagens, and coal power plants all share?

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with Peter Brannen, the author of a new history of the planet, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything. The book weaves together a single narrative from the Big Bang to the Permian explosion to the oil-devouring economy of today by means of a single common thread: CO2, the same molecule now threatening our continued flourishing.

Brannen is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Ends of the World, a history of mass extinctions on Earth. He is an affiliate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. 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. Jesse is off this week.

Mentioned:

Peter’s book, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything

Lost City Hydrothermal Field

ATP synthase in action

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Hydrostor is building the future of energy with Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage. Delivering clean, reliable power with 500-megawatt facilities sited on 100 acres, Hydrostor’s energy storage projects are transforming the grid and creating thousands of American jobs. Learn more at hydrostor.ca.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shift Key is off for Labor Day, so we’re re-running this classic episode.

For the first time in 15 years, American electricity demand is rising again as new data centers, factories, and electric vehicles come online. The easiest option is to meet that new demand with new supply — new power plants. But in many parts of the country, it can take years to hook up new wind, solar, and batteries to the grid. The reason why is a clogged and broken system called the interconnection queue.   

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, which first aired in 2024, Jesse and Rob speak with two experts about how to understand — and how to fix — what is perhaps the biggest obstacle to deploying more renewables on the U.S. power grid. 

Tyler Norris is a doctoral student at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. He was formerly vice president of development at Cypress Creek Renewables, and he served on North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s Carbon Policy Working Group. Claire Wayner is a senior associate at RMI’s carbon-free electricity program, where she works on the clean and competitive grids team. 

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.

Mentioned: 

Tyler’s study on “energy only” interconnection rules

Matthew Zeitlin on Tyler’s research into flexible loads

FERC Order 2023

Advanced Energy United on “Unlocking America's Energy”

PJM’s Capacity Auction: The Real Story

Rob’s downshift; Jesse’s upshift.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Accelerate your clean energy career with Yale’s online certificate programs. Gain real-world skills, build strong networks, and keep working while you learn. Explore the year-long Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program or the 5-month Clean and Equitable Energy Development program. Learn more here.

Join clean energy leaders at RE+ 25, September 8–11 in Las Vegas. Explore opportunities to meet rising energy demand with the latest in solar, storage, EVs, and more at North America’s largest energy event. Save 20% with code HEATMAP20 at re-plus.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So far on Shift Key Summer School we’ve covered how electricity gets made and how it gets sold. But none of that matters without the grid, which is how that electricity gets to you, the consumer. Who actually keeps the grid running? And what decisions did they make an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago, five years ago to make sure that it would still be running right this second? 

This week on Shift Key, Rob and Jesse chat with Mark Rothleder, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the California Independent System Operator, which manages about 80% of the state’s electricity flow. As the longest-serving employee at CAISO, he’s full of institutional knowledge. How does he manage the resource mix throughout the day? What happens in a blackout? And how do you pronounce CAISO in the first place?

Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.  

Mentioned: 

Jesse’s slides on long-run equilibrium and electricity markets

The CAISO app

Shift Key Summer School episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4

Also on Shift Key: Spain’s Blackout and the Miracle of the Modern Power Grid

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Accelerate your clean energy career with Yale’s online certificate programs. Gain real-world skills, build strong networks, and keep working while you learn. Explore the year-long Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program or the 5-month Clean and Equitable Energy Development program. Learn more here.

Join clean energy leaders at RE+ 25, September 8–11 in Las Vegas. Explore opportunities to meet rising energy demand with the latest in solar, storage, EVs, and more at North America’s largest energy event. Save 20% with code HEATMAP20 at re-plus.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most electricity used in America today is sold on a wholesale power market. These markets are one of the most important institutions structuring the modern U.S. energy economy, but they’re also not very well understood, even in climate nerd circles. And after all: How would you even run a market for something that’s used at the second it’s created — and moves at the speed of light? 

On this week’s episode of Shift Key Summer School, Rob and Jesse talk about how electricity finds a price and how modern power markets work. Why run a power market in the first place? Who makes the most money in power markets? How do you encourage new power plants to get built? And what do power markets mean for renewables? 

Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.  

Mentioned: 

Jesse’s slides on electricity pricing in the short run

Jesse’s lecture slides on electricity pricing in the long run

“The duck curve”

Shift Key Summer School episodes 1, 2, and 3

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Accelerate your clean energy career with Yale’s online certificate programs. Gain real-world skills, build strong networks, and keep working while you learn. Explore the year-long Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program or the 5-month Clean and Equitable Energy Development program. Learn more here.

Join clean energy leaders at RE+ 25, September 8–11 in Las Vegas. Explore opportunities to meet rising energy demand with the latest in solar, storage, EVs, and more at North America’s largest energy event. Save 20% with code HEATMAP20 at re-plus.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Trump administration has formally declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not dangerous pollutants. If the president gets his way, then the Environmental Protection Agency may soon surrender any ability to regulate heat-trapping pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and factories — in ways that a future Democratic president potentially could not reverse.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, we discuss whether Trump’s EPA gambit will work, the arguments that the administration is using, and what it could mean for the future of U.S. climate and energy policy. We’re joined by Jody Freeman, the Archibald Cox Professor of Law at Harvard and the director of Harvard’s environmental and energy law program. She was an architect of the Obama administration’s landmark deal with automakers to accept carbon dioxide regulations.

Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.

Mentioned:

The EPA Says Carbon Pollution Isn’t Dangerous. What Comes Next?

The EPA on its reconsideration of the endangerment finding

Jody’s story on the change: Trump’s EPA proposes to end the U.S. fight against climate change

Jesse’s upshift (and accompanying video); Rob’s sort of upshift.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Accelerate your clean energy career with Yale’s online certificate programs. Gain real-world skills, build strong networks, and keep working while you learn. Explore the year-long Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program or the 5-month Clean and Equitable Energy Development program. Learn more here.

Join clean energy leaders at RE+ 25, September 8–11 in Las Vegas. Explore opportunities to meet rising energy demand with the latest in solar, storage, EVs, and more at North America’s largest energy event. Save 20% with code HEATMAP20 at re-plus.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the next few years, the United States is going to see the fastest growth in electricity demand since the 1970s. And that’s only the beginning of the challenges that our power grid will face. When you step back, virtually every trend facing the power system — such as the coming surge in liquified natural gas exports or President Trump’s repeal of wind and solar tax credits — threatens to constrain the supply of new electricity. 

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk about why they’re increasingly worried about a surge in electricity prices. What’s setting us up for an electricity shortfall? What does the recent auction in the country’s largest electricity market tell us about what’s coming? And what would a power shock mean for utility customers, the economy, and decarbonization? 

Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.  

Mentioned: 

Jesse on The Ezra Klein Show

From Rob: The Electricity Affordability Crisis Is Coming

U.S. power use to reach record highs in 2025 and 2026, per EIA

Why the EIA expects natural gas prices to rise

The Messy Truth of America’s Natural Gas Exports

Governor Josh Schapiro’s legal action to constrain power prices

Jesse’s upshift; Rob’s downshift.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Accelerate your clean energy career with Yale’s online certificate programs. Gain real-world skills, build strong networks, and keep working while you learn. Explore the year-long Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program or the 5-month Clean and Equitable Energy Development program. Learn more here.

Join clean energy leaders at RE+ 25, September 8–11 in Las Vegas. Explore opportunities to meet rising energy demand with the latest in solar, storage, EVs, and more at North America’s largest energy event. Save 20% with code HEATMAP20 at re-plus.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The two fastest-growing sources of electricity generation in the world represent a radical break with the energy technologies that came before them. That’s not just because their fuels are the wind and the sun.

This is our third episode of Shift Key Summer School, a series of “lecture conversations” about the basics of energy, electricity, and the power grid. This week, we dive into the history and mechanics of wind turbines and solar panels, the two lynchpin technologies of the energy transition. What do solar panels have in common with semiconductors? Why did it take so long for them to achieve scale? And what’s an inverter and why is it so important for the grid of the future? 

Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.  

Mentioned:

How Solar Energy Became Cheap, by Gregory F. Nemet

More on what wind energy has to do with Star Trek

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Accelerate your clean energy career with Yale’s online certificate programs. Gain real-world skills, build strong networks, and keep working while you learn. Explore the year-long Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program or the 5-month Clean and Equitable Energy Development program. Learn more here.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s official. On July 4, President Trump signed the Republican reconciliation bill into law, gutting many of the country’s most significant clean energy tax credits. The future of the American solar, wind, battery, and electric vehicle industries looks very different now than it did last year.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, we survey the damage and look for bright spots. What did the law, in its final version, actually repeal, and what did it leave intact? How much could still change as the Trump administration implements the law? What does this mean for U.S. economic competitiveness? And how are we feeling about the climate fight today? 

Jillian Goodman, Heatmap’s deputy editor, joins us to discuss all these questions and more. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.  

Mentioned:

The REPEAT Project report on what the OBBBA will mean for the future of American emissions

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s foreign entities of concern explainer

The new White House executive order about renewables tax credits 

And here’s more of Heatmap’s coverage from the endgame of OBBBA.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

The Yale Center for Business and the Environment’s online clean energy programs equip you with tangible skills and powerful networks—and you can continue working while learning. In just five hours a week, propel your career and make a difference.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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?

Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.

Mentioned:

Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology, by Alexis Madrigal

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

The Yale Center for Business and the Environment’s online clean energy programs equip you with tangible skills and powerful networks—and you can continue working while learning. In just five hours a week, propel your career and make a difference.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is the difference between energy and power? How does the power grid work? And what’s the difference between a megawatt and a megawatt-hour? 

On this week’s episode, we answer those questions and many, many more. This is the start of a new series: Shift Key Summer School. It’s a series of introductory “lecture conversations” meant to cover the basics of energy and the power grid for listeners of every experience level and background. In less than an hour, we try to get you up to speed on how to think about energy, power, horsepower, volts, amps, and what uses (approximately) 1 watt-hour, 1 kilowatt-hour, 1 megawatt-hour, and 1 gigawatt-hour. 

Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.  

Mentioned: 

Decarbonize Your Life

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

The Yale Center for Business and the Environment’s online clean energy programs equip you with tangible skills and powerful networks—and you can continue working while learning. In just five hours a week, propel your career and make a difference.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.