Shift Key with Robinson Meyer

Every midterm, the focus is on Congress — and for good reason. But in two weeks, Americans will vote on a number of state races that will matter immensely to the energy system, the power grid, and the future direction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate Cabinet tracks those races, using what it calls “the moneyball approach” to identify the local offices nationwide with the most potential climate impact. On this episode of Shift Key, Caroline Spears, the founder and executive director of Climate Cabinet, joins Rob to discuss what's at stake this election, which state races will matter the most, and which races to watch to see where climate policy might go in 2027 and beyond.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Caroline’s elections to watch:

Georgia Public Utility Commission

Arizona Corporation Commission

Eileen Hartnett Albillar in Pennsylvania Senate District 6

Trevor Jung, from Wisconsin Senate District 21

Aaron Lieberman in Arizona Senate District 4

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

No researcher has been more cited in lawsuits against fossil fuel infrastructure than Peter Erickson. As an affiliated researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, Peter studies how pipelines and other oil and gas supply expansions can increase global carbon emissions. His work has been critical to the activist fights against the Keystone XL pipeline, the Enbridge pipeline, and others.

But in recent years, he’s taken a more nuanced approach to fossil fuel supply — in part because, as he has shown, it can enrich the oil and gas industry in a surprising but direct way. On this episode of Shift Key, Peter joins Rob to discuss why blocking fossil fuel supply can lower emissions, why it can counterintuitively transfer wealth from energy consumers to fossil fuel firms, and what it all might mean for the future of climate policy.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Peter’s papers:

"Assessing carbon lock-in”

"Impact of the Keystone XL pipeline on global oil markets and greenhouse gas emissions"

"Would constraining US fossil fuel production affect global CO2 emissions? A case study of US leasing policy"

"Limiting fossil fuel production as the next big step in climate policy"

"Rethinking the case against new oil and gas fields"

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

There are two big trends in the American battery sector at the moment. The first is that the electric vehicle market is deteriorating. GM, for instance, sold just 25,000 EVs in the third quarter of this year. Ford sold 6,000 EVs. Even the long-awaited return of the Chevy Bolt sold just 8,000 units — a small fraction of the vehicle’s already-limited production run. At the same time, the data center boom and the return of electricity growth is boosting batteries of all kinds ​not​ designed to power EVs.

Our guest today is in charge of navigating those opposing trends and figuring out what comes next. Kurt Kelty started his career at Panasonic in 1993, where he led the company’s battery research lab. He then went on to Tesla, helping to build the first Gigafactory. Since February 2024, he’s been vice president of battery and sustainability at GM. We talked about manufacturing generally, how the U.S. battery manufacturing sector should look, and how companies should be structured to compete globally, even though they’re making batteries for a mostly U.S. audience.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

​Mentioned:

The Senate’s Big Bipartisan Permitting Deal, Explained

On Rivian’s record-setting Q3

Previously on Shift Key: Data Centers Are Creating a New Kind of Battery Monster

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

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

Governor Mikie Sherrill is a former Navy pilot, federal prosecutor, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was elected New Jersey's governor in November 2025 in a campaign dominated by the state’s surging electricity prices.

For this episode of Shift Key, Governor Sherrill joined Heatmap correspondent Matthew Zeitlin for a live conversation at our Heatmap House event, part of New York Climate Week. She reflected on electricity inflation, power markets, and what a data center developer would need to do to build in New Jersey.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

​Mentioned:

Matthew on Governor Sherrill’s electricity rate freeze​

Previously on Shift Key: Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Trump’s Pro-Nuclear, Pro-Fossil Fuel Agenda

Previously on Shift Key: Al Gore on AI, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ and the Biggest Surprises of the Past 20 Yearst 20 Years

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

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

Former Vice President Al Gore needs no introduction. He is, in a way, the original climate influencer. His film An Inconvenient Truth gave rise to a new wave of climate activism in the 2000s. It was one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time upon its release, and it won an Oscar, a Grammy, and — for Vice President Gore — a Nobel Peace Prize.

He’s remained active in climate policy since then and leads the Climate Reality Project. He is also an investor and was a longtime director at Apple.

For this episode of Shift Key, Vice President Gore joined Rob for a live conversation at our Heatmap House event, part of New York Climate Week. He reflected on the 20th anniversary of An Inconvenient Truth, the existential risk of artificial intelligence, and what has surprised him most about the evolution of climate politics.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Previously on Shift Key: Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Trump’s Pro-Nuclear, Pro-Fossil Fuel Agenda

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

Since taking office last year, the Trump administration has blocked renewable energy development and attacked climate change policy, prioritized fossil fuels and encouraged nuclear energy, and started a war that led to a global oil and gas supply shock.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has been the face of much of that policy agenda. For this episode of Shift Key, he joined Rob for a live conversation at our Heatmap House event, part of New York Climate Week. He answered questions about the Trump administration’s war on wind, a ban on diesel fuel exports, and how China has been able to buttress global oil supplies since the spring.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Chris Wright Doesn’t Think We’ll Have a Diesel Export Ban

Trump Keeps Wind Farms Waiting Despite Court Ruling

Trump’s War Against Wind Energy: A Timeline

Previously on Shift Key: How China Saved the World From Trump’s Energy Crisis

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

In the past few years, something surprising has happened in American energy policy: States and utilities have started trying to build new nuclear plants.

A new kind of company — the nuclear developer — is now trying to handle those projects. The most prominent by far is The Nuclear Company, a startup that has hired many of the same people who built the new Vogtle plant in Georgia. On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Jonathan Webb, the CEO of the Nuclear Company. They discuss the company’s goal of building “fleet-scale” nuclear, why Jonathan believes nuclear is poised for a revival, and what has changed since the company began.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Previously on Shift Key: The Lesson Nuclear Companies Should Take From the Dot-Com Boom

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

America has some of the world’s best data about its own internal energy, industrial economy, and carbon emissions. That’s thanks to a federal agency called the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which painstakingly collects and updates the data every week.

But EIA data can be hard to access — and even harder to share and understand. A new project aims to change that. U.S. Energy Data takes federal energy data and repackages it, helping amateurs and experts understand the power grid, liquid fuels, and more. It is now the easiest way to make and share charts with federal energy data.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist and writer who advised and prototyped US Energy Data. She is also the author of Not the End of the World and Clearing the Air, as well as a senior researcher at the University of Oxford and the deputy editor at Our World in Data. Rob and Hannah discuss how the platform came together, what makes it such a valuable resource, and what we can learn from it about the state of the energy transition.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

U.S. Energy Data

Previously on Shift Key: Daniel Palken of Arnold Ventures joined us to discuss permitting reform

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

As we catch up from summer vacation, we’re bringing you a favorite from the Shift Key archive. We’ll be back in your feed with more fresh episodes starting next week.

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 was the start of Shift Key Summer School, 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, Rob and former Shift Key co-host Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, 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 Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Decarbonize Your Life

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Verse’s software platform Aria helps data centers connect to the grid faster and optimize power operations in real time. Learn more at verse.inc.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

The United States is staring down a natural gas buildout of gigantic proportions.

Amazon wants to build what would be the country’s largest power plant in Texas — and run it entirely on natural gas. Not to be outdone, OpenAI is plotting an even larger power plant in Ohio that, if built, would become the world’s largest gas power facility. How should we think about this boom — and about the AI and technology companies behind it, who remain some of the world’s biggest buyers of clean energy?

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Emily Pontecorvo, a Heatmap founding staff writer. They discuss what Emily learned identifying the country’s 10 biggest gas projects, what surprised her most, and what this means for the country’s climate trajectory — and Big Tech’s corporate net-zero goals.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

The U.S. Is Building Natural Gas Power Twice as Fast as China

Emily on Amazon’s Gigawatt Ranch

Rob on OpenAI and the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Verse's software platform Aria helps data centers connect to the grid faster and optimize power operations in real time. Learn more at verse.inc.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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