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.

Two years ago, Donald Trump made an outlandish campaign promise: He would cut Americans’ power bills in half.

It was a ridiculous, impossible pledge — but even so, the affordability problem didn’t need to get this bad. A new report, out this week from the Natural Resources Defense Council, looks at the economic, environmental, and public health costs of Trump’s regulatory and legislative clean energy policies, including his rollback of the wind and solar tax credits.

The report’s author, Amanda Levin, joins Rob on this episode of Shift Key. Levin is a Director of Policy Analysis at the NRDC’s Science Office. They discuss why Trump’s repeal will have long-term effects, the underrated public health impacts of the rollback, and why Levin believes the credits should be restored.

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:

Amanda Levin’s new report: An Affordability Crisis of Trump’s Own Making

A ‘Glass Half Full’ Isn’t Enough to Fight Climate Change

Previously on Shift Key: The New Paper Arguing Biden’s Power Sector Emissions Cuts Are Largely Intact — Even Under Trump

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

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.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

California now has the most expensive electricity in the continental United States. It also has expensive housing … and an increasingly broken home insurance market.

Are the three phenomena linked? They might be. Due to a peculiarity in the state’s constitution, electricity utilities are incentivized to pay for a huge amount of wildfire prevention, above and beyond what would be seen as economically reasonable in another state. Fixing that constitutional peculiarity could help bring down energy costs and heal the home insurance market, but it will be complicated — and a number of policies will need to get passed at the same time.

That’s what Lauren Teixeira argues in her new report, “Rewiring Risk.” Teixeira, a senior climate and energy analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, joins Rob for today’s episode of Shift Key. They discuss how California found itself in this situation, how it might be fixed, and why the state treats utilities as a sin-eater for wildfire risk.

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:

Lauren’s report: Rewiring Risk

Rethinking Utility Wildfire Risk in California

Previously on Shift Key: How California Broke Its Electricity Bills

Previously on Shift Key: How Wildfires Destroyed California’s Insurance Market

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

Every few years, the Pacific Ocean’s surface waters become especially warm near the equator, a climatic phenomenon known as El Niño.

El Niño is a normal part of the climate system, but even in a normal year, it can trigger extreme weather around the world. Forecasters are worried that the current El Niño — which just began a few weeks ago — is going to be anything but normal. Models suggest that we could soon see the hottest El Niño ever measured, with unpredictable and catastrophic effects for ecosystems and societies around the world.

What does that mean? And why does this El Niño look so bad? On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Zeke Hausfather, a climate research lead at Stripe and a research scientist at Berkeley Earth. They discuss what forecast models are saying about this El Niño, why it gives us a glance at the future, and whether climate change itself is accelerating.

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:

NOAA’s El Niño page and the relative El Niño index

An Assessment of Earth's Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence, the 2020 paper where Zeke was a coauthor

Zeke’s blog post on AI emissions: The real energy use of agentic AI

John Bistline’s post on AI emissions at Watershed

Heatmap’s coverage of AI emissions: A New Guesstimate for Corporate AI Emissions

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

At this point, when you hear “venture capitalist,” you probably think of … software. Or artificial intelligence. Or cryptocurrency.

The Engine Ventures, which spun out of MIT a few years ago, is different. It tries to fund what it calls “tough tech,” a somewhat nebulous category that includes companies working in energy, decarbonization, health, and infrastructure. As such, it’s backed some of the most interesting “climate tech” companies in business today, such as Form Energy, Commonwealth Fusion.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with Katie Rae, the CEO and managing partner of Engine Ventures. They chat about what’s missing from America’s innovation ecosystem, how close fusion is to succeeding, and whether AI is a bubble (whatever that might mean). 

One more note: Early in our conversation, Katie says that Commonwealth Fusion has built “more than 300” tokamak reactors. That was, unfortunately, an overestimate. It’s actually built closer to more than 150 reactors. Her team contacted us after her appearance to correct the record.

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:

From Heatmap: Commonwealth Fusion Systems Wins Over New Class of Investors With $1 Billion Raise

Previously on Shift Key: Why John Arnold Is ‘Very Optimistic’ Permitting Reform Will Pass This Year

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

The Democratic Party’s climate and energy policy is at a difficult moment. Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has attacked solar and wind energy, started an inflationary war, and repealed key parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. And about a year and a half from now, Democrats will pick a presidential candidate and pitch their energy and climate policies to voters again.

How are key Democrats feeling at this moment? Rob recently had a chance to sit down with two of the party’s most important energy policy makers — Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, and former Energy Secretary and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm — for an in-person conversation in Washington, D.C.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with Senator Heinrich and Secretary Granholm, about fuel prices, the state of permitting discussions, AI data centers, and what each learned from writing — and implementing — the Inflation Reduction Act.

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

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.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Previously on Shift Key: What Senator Martin Heinrich Needs to See in a Permitting Deal

Previously on Shift Key: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on What Comes After Biden’s Climate Agenda

Previously on Heatmap: 3 Takeaways From Our SunZia Investigation

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

There’s really one one good thing that could happen this year in Congress for clean energy: permitting reform. If lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal on the country’s permitting system, they could make it easier to build solar, wind, and transmission lines — as well as every other kind of infrastructure.

But will it happen? What are the obstacles to a deal? What would be in a deal? On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Daniel Palken, the director of infrastructure for energy and permitting at Arnold Ventures. They discuss the recent history of permitting reform, the policies that would probably make up a deal, and why it might be now or never for reforming the permitting system.

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

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.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

The FREEDOM Act, which would limit the president’s ability to yank permits

Rob’s SunZia story: The Long, Strange Success Story of America’s Biggest Clean Energy Project

Why the National Historic Preservation Act falls harder on transmission projects than pipelines

Previously on Heatmap: What Is Permitting Reform? Here’s a Cheat Sheet.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Tandem PV is the leader in perovskite solar technology. We’re building the most efficient and durable perovskite solar panels on the market at our factory in Freemont, California. Learn how we're restoring U.S. leadership for the next era of solar manufacturing at tandempv.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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

Charm Industrial is a climate tech company that takes biomass and converts it into a heavy, carbon-rich oil that can be injected underground, transmuting and storing the greenhouse gas far from the atmosphere. They’re scaling up fast and recently announced a new $20 million debt facility with JP Morgan; the bank also agreed to buy more than 60,000 tons worth of removals from them.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Peter Reinhardt, the CEO and cofounder of Charm. (He’s also the CEO of the trucking company Revoy, a founder of the autoimmune therapeutics company Antipode, and a board member at the electricity data company Arcadia.) They talk about what makes Charm different, how it is scaling operations as a carbon removal company, and the changing politics of climate change.

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:

Charm’s new deal with JP Morgan

The ProPublica story Peter criticized

“Over-Regulation is Doubling the Cost,” by Peter

The Cantwell-Sheehy bipartisan carbon removal bill

Previously on Heatmap: Charm Is Working With the U.S. Forest Service on a Carbon Removal Pilot

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Tandem PV is the leader in perovskite solar technology. We’re building the most efficient and durable perovskite solar panels on the market at our factory in Freemont, California. Learn how we're restoring U.S. leadership for the next era of solar manufacturing at tandempv.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow

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

For more than 30 years, a heterodox group of scientists have proposed injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth, thereby cooling the atmosphere and reversing climate change.

But actual research into the idea has remained taboo, or at least the province of university and government labs. Then, last year, Heatmap broke the story of an Israeli-American company named Stardust Solutions that had raised $60 million to develop a new solar geoengineering technology. This system would be easier to control and track than the traditional approach to geoengineering, it claims.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Yanai Yedvab, the cofounder and CEO of Stardust. They discuss why Stardust is researching geoengineering now, whether a for-profit company belongs in the space, why Yanai believes Stardust’s particles are superior to sulfate aerosols, and whether Stardust has or will ever conduct outdoor experiments.

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:

Rob’s initial story on Stardust: Stardust Solutions, a Geoengineering Startup, Raises $60 Million to Build a Solar-Reflecting System by 2030

Stardust’s new governance commitments

What we know about Stardust’s tiny spheres

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Tandem PV is the leader in perovskite solar technology. We’re building the most efficient and durable perovskite solar panels on the market at our factory in Freemont, California. Learn how we're restoring U.S. leadership for the next era of solar manufacturing at tandempv.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow 

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