The Capitalist Hippie

The cheapest fix for AI's power problem is America's power grid. That is, the one that already exists.

A Brattle study puts the savings from running it ten percent harder at more than $100 billion. The fixes chasing that number run from dynamic line ratings to a five gigawatt-hour heat battery in South Dakota. Jackie Snow and six grid experts explain what keeps us from tapping into these solutions.

CREDITS:

Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.

Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.

Hosted by Marco Pimentel.

Produced by Simon Litt.

Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

Residents of Scioto County, Ohio, learned about their new $1 billion Google data center after the deal was done.

The county gave up 75 percent of the property tax on it for 15 years. Historian John Reeves compares what's happening today with what happened the last time America built at speed. Catherine Baab-Muguira investigates the pledge signed by tech CEOs, which claims AI won't raise anyone's electricity bill.

CREDITS:

Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.

Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab-Muguira, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.

Hosted by Marco Pimentel.

Produced by Simon Litt.

Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

America's grid runs at about half its capacity. AI needs more power. What's the problem?

Every new data center waits on a connection study, and the studies are still run by hand. The turbines and transmission lines that would add capacity take five years or more to arrive. Jackie Snow traces the wait through roughly three thousand utilities, each working the problem alone.

CREDITS:

Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.

Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab-Muguira, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.

Hosted by Marco Pimentel.

Produced by Simon Litt.

Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

America is rebuilding its power grid for AI before anyone can agree on how much power AI will need.

In Ohio, one utility held 30 gigawatts of data center requests. When it asked developers for money upfront, requests dropped to 13 gigawatts. Jackie Snow follows the phantom demand clogging utility queues, the decisions already being made on numbers nobody trusts, and who pays if the guesses run high.

CREDITS:

Power Play is a production by Quartz and The Capitalist Hippie.

Reported by Jackie Snow, Catherine Baab-Muguira, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig.

Hosted by Marco Pimentel.

Produced by Simon Litt.

Edited by Georgina Kemp Walker.

What if one of the biggest energy wins in your home is hiding in plain sight? In this episode of The Capitalist Hippie podcast, host Marco Pimentel sits down with Luke Winston-Almanzar, CEO and co-founder of Reservoir. Together, they break down why hot water is a surprisingly large slice of household energy use, how smart heat pump tech can deliver ~4x efficiency, and why "connected" home hardware can become a real grid resource.

Protein isn't just a fitness buzzword; it's the foundation of our food future. In this episode, Marco sits down with Thijs Bosch, CEO of The Protein Brewery, to explore how brewing fungal strains could replace factory farms. They unpack the company's recent $30M funding round and how that capital is fueling a new era of sustainable, scalable protein. Together, they unpack what this breakthrough ingredient means for the future of food, sustainability, and profit.

Agriculture isn't broken — it's misunderstood.

In this episode of The Capitalist Hippie Podcast, host Marco Pimentel sits down with Ali Cox, Olympian and founder of Noble West, to explore how storytelling is reshaping the future of food. From rice fields to pistachio ads, Ali reveals how farmers are reclaiming their place in the value chain by turning transparency into strategy.

They dig into why sustainability messaging often fails, how small farms can still win, and what it really takes to turn a crop into a brand consumers care about.

The space race was exciting. The climate race is urgent. In this episode of The Capitalist Hippie Podcast, host Marco Pimentel talks with former NASA engineer, Grant Gunnison, about how he founded Zero Homes to reimagine how Americans power their homes.

With 20% of U.S. emissions coming from single-family houses, Zero Homes is using software, data, and design to make retrofits effortless, turning what used to take weeks into a one-hour digital experience. Marco and Grant unpack how better tech and smarter systems can accelerate climate action, lower costs for homeowners, and make sustainable living the new standard.

Can retired EV batteries help solve our energy crisis? In this episode, Nick Nesbitt, founder of Mapleview Energy reveals how they are transforming used electric vehicle batteries into commercial-scale energy storage solutions. By repurposing batteries with 70-80% remaining capacity, they're tackling critical grid capacity challenges, creating circular economy infrastructure, and turning waste into essential infrastructure.

AI isn't just reshaping our digital world; it's rewriting the energy equation. As data centers surge and demand could reach 11% of global electricity by 2030, climate tech investors and founders face a stark choice: can we power the AI boom while staying on track for decarbonization? In this episode of The Capitalist Hippie Podcast, host Marco Pimentel sits down with Nick van Osdol, who's both investing in and telling the stories of climate tech's next wave as founder of Keep Cool. Join us as we dive into how AI and clean energy are colliding and converging to shape our future.