September 19, 2025

Siliconsciousness: The AI and Energy Scenario Exercise: Part 2

46 minutes

In four years time, how might a theoretical Dem administration grapple with the expanding energy consumption and demand for AI? This is the question the second half of TRG Media and MIT Technology Review’s AI and Energy Scenario Exercises seeks to explore. Leading experts come together to role play as key actors in government, private industry, and more to simulate how public policy might take shape in the coming years. This episode contains the second and final phase of the game and a brief wrap-up from the editor in chief of MIT Technology Review Mat Honan and game designer Ed McGrady.

The Players:

US Federal

POTUS - Merici Vinton, Former Senior Advisor to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel

Security (DoD, DHS, DOS) - Mark Dalton, Senior director of technology and innovation at R Street

Energy (DOE, EPA, Interior) - Wayne Brough, Former President of the Innovation Defense Foundation and senior fellow on R Street’s Technology and Innovation team

Red State Leadership- Soren Dayton, Director of Governance at the Niskanen Center

Power generation industry

Fossil - David Sandalow, Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University

Solar - Enock Ebban, host of “Sustainability Transformations Podcast”

Nuclear [1] - Ashley Finan, Jay and Jill Bernstein Global Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University

Investors in Al

Domestic- Josiah Neeley, R Street Institute’s Energy team advisor

International - Josh Felser, CO Founder and Managing Partner at Climatic

International (Middle East, EU, Russia, China, etc.) - Shaolei Ren, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California

International (Middle East, EU, Russia, China, etc.) - Rachel Ziemba, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS)

Blue State Leadership

POTUS Adam Zurofsky - former Director of State Policy and Agency Management for the State of New York

Ari Peskoe - Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program

Beth Garza - senior fellow with R Street’s Energy & Environmental Policy Team

Public interest

Environmental - Brent Eubanks, founder of Eubanks Engineering Research

Domestic political - Meiyi Li, Ph.D. candidate at The University of Texas at Austin

Media - Jen Sidorova, policy analyst at Reason Foundation

Al and other Digital Industries

AI - Valerie Taylor, division director of Mathematics and Computer Science at Argonne National Laboratory

Blockchain -Erica Schoder, Executive Director and co-founder of the R Street Institute

Erica Schroder - Elliot David, Head of Climate Strategy at Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol

Other digital systems (chips, data center operations, online gaming, streaming, etc.) [1] - Ken Briggs, Faculty Assistant at Harvard University

This material is distributed by TRG Advisory Services, LLC on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the U.S.. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

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