The Power Hungry Podcast

When Jeff Sandefer and his wife, Laura, started Acton Academy in 2010 with a single school in Austin, Texas, they had no idea that their network of schools would grow to 325 campuses in 26 countries just 13 years later. In this episode, Sandefer, a former oil and gas executive who has taught entrepreneurship at the college level, explains why every child is a “genius” who must embark on their own “hero’s journey” and why he believes Acton’s model has gained so much traction among “parent entrepreneurs.” (Recorded October 23, 2023.) 

Jimmy Glotfelty has spent more than 30 years in and around the power sector, including stints at the state of Texas, Department of Energy, the private sector, and now, as a regulator at the Texas Public Utility Commission. In this episode, Glotfelty explains how the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group hopes to incentivize the construction of new reactors in the state, why federal tax incentives for wind and solar have created an “uneven market,” why it’s hard to build high-voltage transmission projects, and the role of batteries on the electric grid. (Recorded October 9, 2023.) 

Patrick Brown’s interest in climate and weather goes back to his childhood, when, as an eight-year-old, he set up a home weather station. In this episode, Brown, the co-director of the climate and energy program at the Breakthrough Institute, talks about why he left academia, how the “climate doom narrative” dominates climate science, how “cliques and clubs” within the science community affect what gets published in prestigious journals, and how much of the reporting on climate change “leaves out the full truth.” (Recorded September 18, 2023)  

Jane Menton is a lifelong New Yorker and current resident of Queens, where she sits on the board of her co-op. In this episode, Jane, the mother of two young children, explains why New York City’s Local Law 97, which mandates huge emissions reductions from buildings, is an “electrification monster” that will be “ruinously expensive” and could result in electricity shortages and a “humanitarian nightmare.” (Recorded August 29, 2023.)     

Yonatan Dubi is a physicist and one of the founders of the Israeli Forum for Rational Environmentalism. In this episode, Dubi talks about the history of Israeli energy including the massive offshore natural gas discoveries, the recent Druze protests against wind energy in the Golan Heights, why solar, even in sunny Israel “fails completely,” and why he is pushing hard for nuclear energy in his home country. (Recorded August 17, 2023)  

Judith A. Curry is a climatologist, the founder of Climate Forecast Applications Network, and the author of a new book: Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response. In her third appearance on the podcast (the last was December 27, 2022) Curry talks about her new book, the “oversimplified analysis” of climate that’s being used by legacy media and policymakers, censorship, the importance of Twitter, and why we need to see the global climate as a “complex, chaotic, non-linear system.” (Recorded August 18, 2023.)

Jessica Weinkle studies climate science and how interpretations of it affect the financial sectors and public policy. In this episode, Weinkle, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, explains why insurance is “ubiquitous in society,” how climate models affect insurance rates, the “protective wall” around the NGO-climate-industrial complex, and why the catastrophic dialogue around climate change is “clickbait.” (Recorded July 7, 2023.) 

Seaver Wang’s academic training in oceanography makes him a knowledgeable source for discussing Japan’s release of tritiated water from Fukushima Daiichi into the Pacific Ocean, a process that began last week. In addition, Wang, the co-director of the climate and energy program at the Breakthrough Institute,  discusses future demand for metals and minerals, “radiophobia,” the challenges facing nuclear power, solar supply chains, and China’s “cultural erasure” of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province. (Recorded August 28, 2023) 

Dan Poneman heads Centrus Energy, the only company in the United States that is licensed to produce High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) which will be needed to fuel some of the advanced reactors now being developed for commercial deployment. Poneman talks about Russia’s dominance of the global nuclear supply chain, why a strong nuclear sector is imperative for national security, the chicken-and-egg problem with producing enriched uranium, and the many hurdles facing new reactors. (Recorded August 16, 2023.) 

Phil Goldberg is a Washington, DC-based lawyer who is helping defend the oil and gas industry in the more than two dozen climate-related lawsuits that have been filed against it by local governments across the U.S. Goldberg talks about the history of climate litigation, why the public nuisance claims being made against the industry are “unimaginably broad,” the NGOs that are funding the litigation, and why those NGOs “want to have judges set energy policy.” (Recorded July 26, 2023.)