For the last decade and a half, the loudest voices in the climate movement have treated decarbonization like a moral crusade: ban gas stoves, declare climate emergencies, punish fossil fuel companies. But those tactics don’t lower utility bills or build durable political coalitions. And now, amidst a radical shift in U.S. politics where the economy dominates, there’s a growing call for a pragmatic reset. This week, we dissect two critiques of climate politics. In a Bloomberg essay, Michael Liebr...
Sep 26, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Eggs were the symbol of inflation in the last election. Now, as electricity bills spike, they are becoming a symbol for consumer frustration in 2026. Americans are feeling the squeeze. Bills are up nearly 30% since 2021, outpacing inflation and straining household budgets. Eighty million Americans are struggling to pay, four in five feel powerless, and politicians are scrambling for someone to blame. On Truth Social, Trump points at renewables. On TikTok and Bluesky, users rage about data center...
Sep 19, 2025•1 hr 10 min
On his first day in office, Trump laid out his wind policy in one simple sentence: “We aren’t going to do the wind thing.” With stop-work orders, red tape, and wild claims about whale-killing electromagnetic fields, the White House has stepped up its war on wind. The flashpoint is Ørsted’s $5 billion Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island, which was weeks from delivering 700 megawatts of clean power to New England, and now frozen by federal order. The threat against the project is more than a ...
Sep 12, 2025•53 min
In 2004, Dr. Sarah Kapnick was a young banking analyst at Goldman Sachs when she spotted a blind spot: no one was helping clients understand climate risk. Two decades later, she’s the Global Head of Climate Advisory at JPMorgan, turning climate science into boardroom strategy. Kapnick’s career path — from Wall Street, to NOAA’s chief scientist, and back to finance — mirrors the way markets are evolving: from ignoring climate risk, to struggling with it, to finally beginning to price it. Without ...
Sep 05, 2025•53 min
This week, we’re doing something a little different: we’re turning to Jigar’s social media feeds and listener questions to guide our conversation on the latest news in clean energy. First, we tackle the affordability crisis. President Trump recently posted on Truth Social calling renewables "the scam of the century" and blaming them for rising prices. We look at how his policies are making the crisis worse, and why Trump now owns the problem. Then, we look at how VPPs are hitting a tipping point...
Aug 29, 2025•1 hr 1 min
We're witnessing a profound shift from discrete AI tools to always-on AI companions — systems that provide constant feedback, conversation, and support. Sound familiar? It's the 2013 movie "Her" becoming reality. In this episode of Open Circuit , we have a conversation with MIT’s Vijay Gadepally from our Transition-AI conference about how the spread of artificial intelligence is reshaping our digital energy footprint. As a senior scientist at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and CTO of cloud computing c...
Aug 20, 2025•35 min
In the last two quarters, capital spending on AI has blown past all U.S. consumer spending. Investments in AI infrastructure have already eclipsed the telecom and dot-com booms. The top tech companies are pouring so much money into computing power that they may be single-handedly propping up an economy wobbling under chaotic tariff policy. Gigawatts of new data center requests are flooding utility interconnection queues. And while the numbers are big, the uncertainty is even bigger. Which projec...
Aug 13, 2025•40 min
Over the last four years, the U.S. clean energy manufacturing sector saw a historic boom. Factory construction doubled, foreign firms opened production in dozens of states, and federal policy spurred over $150 billion in manufacturing plans. But a swirl of conflicting policies — from chaotic tariff threats to complex foreign sourcing rules — is freezing planned investments, spooking some manufacturers, and prompting some firms to halt growth plans . Core incentives like the 45X manufacturing tax...
Aug 01, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Why can your phone instantly reroute you around traffic, but your utility can't tell you when to charge your car for maximum savings? Why can Uber optimize thousands of drivers in real-time, while the electrical grid struggles to optimize distributed resources? Both transportation and electricity systems emerged during the Victorian era with remarkably similar infrastructure: central hubs connected by sprawling networks. Train stations and power plants. Main lines and transmission lines. Local r...
Jul 29, 2025•28 min
As America faces a surge in electricity demand, the federal government is working hard to slow the very resources needed to meet it. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is expected to slash clean energy deployment by as much as 60% over the next decade — bringing back hard tax credit sunsets, introducing tight construction deadlines, and imposing strict foreign entity restrictions. Meanwhile, a DOE reliability report warns of a 100-fold increase in blackout risk in high-renewables scenarios. And a new ...
Jul 25, 2025•1 hr 2 min
The story of climate change is usually told through fossil fuels — pipelines, coal plants, oil companies. But there's another story that accounts for nearly a third of global emissions: agriculture. And we've barely begun to grapple with it. In this episode of Open Circuit , we're joined by Michael Grunwald, longtime journalist and author of the new book " We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate ." Grunwald spent years investigating why agriculture lags deca...
Jul 18, 2025•1 hr 4 min
America is choosing obstruction over abundance. While AI, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing require massive infrastructure investments, we're trapped in a permitting system designed for a different era — and a political system that rewards blocking over building. In this episode of Open Circuit , we're joined by Brian Deese, former director of the National Economic Council and current MIT innovation fellow, to unpack why America's building capacity has become our biggest competitive bottl...
Jul 14, 2025•58 min
When 47 million people across Spain and Portugal lost power for nearly half a day in April, the finger-pointing began immediately. "Too much renewable energy," declared the critics. Even U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright piled on: "When you hitch your wagon to the weather, it's a risky endeavor.” There's just one problem with this blame-renewables narrative: it's completely wrong. In this crossover episode with the Redefining Energy podcast , we examine the official Spanish grid operator report...
Jul 07, 2025•1 hr 5 min
The climate tech investment landscape is undergoing a major recalibration. After a period of rapid growth and inflated valuations, investors and startups are now navigating a complex environment shaped by tariffs, shifting incentives, and economic clouds. In this episode of Open Circuit , we examine the latest data and investor sentiment trends with Kim Zou, CEO of Sightline Climate. Sightline’s data shows climate tech investment declined 19% in the first half of 2025, reflecting both macroecono...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr 7 min
The grid faces a mismatch: the system is getting smarter, but we're not getting smarter about how we use it. Utilities have installed 130 million advanced meters. Millions of homes have smart thermostats, water heaters, and batteries that could work in concert. Data centers could unlock over 100 gigawatts of new capacity without major infrastructure expansion. Yet most smart devices aren't coordinated, advanced meter data sits unused, and there's no standard way to plan for or pay flexible loads...
Jun 20, 2025•1 hr 24 min
The exponential growth of AI is colliding with the linear reality of building energy infrastructure — forcing a rethink of how tech companies power their ambitions. Is the corporate clean energy playbook becoming obsolete? In this live episode from Transition-AI in Boston, we dive deep into the infrastructure challenges of the AI era. We’re joined by Caroline Golin, who spent eight years building Google's energy strategy before leaving earlier this year. We examine how tech companies moved from ...
Jun 17, 2025•53 min
This week, we’re featuring an episode of The Green Blueprint featuring Drew Baglino, a former SVP at Tesla. Subscribe here . In 2014, Drew Baglino was helping build Tesla's energy division with a passionate, scrappy team. Using parts from Tesla's vehicles, they created the first Powerwall home battery. But as demand grew, they hit a critical bottleneck: cell shortages. Customers across multiple markets were already excited about the Powerwall, but Drew’s team struggled to keep up with demand. Wi...
Jun 06, 2025•38 min
America is facing an uncomfortable question: do we know how to build anymore? House Republicans just passed a reconciliation bill that would repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act while adding up to $5 trillion to the national debt. The legislation doesn't just gut clean energy incentives — it hinders the most realistic path to meeting exploding electricity demand. After leveraging hundreds of billions in clean energy investments, 80% flowing to Republican districts, every GOP House member w...
May 30, 2025•1 hr 16 min
Texans take pride in their competitive electricity market, a system designed to let the cheapest resources win. And that market is increasingly choosing clean energy, with wind, solar, and batteries dominating new generation. Nearly 40 gigawatts have been added in just four years, equivalent to the capacity of a mid-sized European country. This market-driven boom has unequivocally lowered costs and improved reliability. But now, in a major ideological reversal, some Texas lawmakers are trying to...
May 23, 2025•1 hr 1 min
When Elon Musk canceled Tesla's affordable Model 2 last year to go all-in on Robotaxis, he may have made the most consequential decision in the company's history. As Chinese automaker BYD captures global market share with lower-cost vehicles and superior charging technology, has Tesla prematurely surrendered the market it created? "In his mind, I think he ushered in the EV revolution for the world, and that problem is solved, and now he wants to move on to AI and robotics," said Bloomberg report...
May 16, 2025•43 min
The Department of Energy is losing talent at an alarming rate. Described by insiders as a "hostile takeover," the agency's transformation under Trump has pushed out thousands of scientists, engineers, and policy experts. What's left behind are gutted offices, stalled infrastructure projects, and billions in funding commitments thrown into question. This isn't a typical government transition — it's a systematic dismantling of America's energy brain trust. This week, we're joined by Latitude Media...
May 09, 2025•52 min
This week, we’re asking the central question of the energy transition: How fast are we going? Clean energy is bringing in $2 trillion of investment annually. Wind and solar now account for the vast majority of new electricity capacity globally. And we may already be at “peak trade” of fossil fuels. And yet, when we look at the share of renewables in final energy consumption, they’re increasing only incrementally around the world. At the current linear pace, meaningful decarbonization may take de...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 2 min
When tech giants build massive data centers to power AI, they're often negotiating confidential deals with utilities that few people will ever see — but that everyone might pay for. Harvard legal expert Ari Peskoe has uncovered a pattern across 40 state regulatory proceedings: special contracts between utilities and data centers being approved with minimal public scrutiny, potentially shifting billions in infrastructure costs to regular ratepayers. With tech companies planning up to $1 trillion ...
Apr 25, 2025•54 min
The business world is facing a tsunami of uncertainty. Across nearly every industry, investment is seizing up amid unpredictable tariffs and contradictory domestic policies. In this week’s episode of Open Circuit , we examine how this compounding uncertainty is impacting clean energy during a critical moment of spiking demand and rising costs. We dissect the signals from the market, revealing that despite the chaos, certain sectors are finding unexpected advantages. While utility-scale projects ...
Apr 18, 2025•59 min
President Trump promised energy dominance. But his sweeping new tariffs are delivering the opposite – creating unprecedented uncertainty for every sector of the energy economy. Faced with a market in revolt, the president blinked. Just hours after his tariffs went into effect, he put a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs, keeping a 10% baseline tariff and a 125% tariff on China. In this episode of Open Circuit , we examine the contradictions at the heart of the administration's economic agenda. W...
Apr 10, 2025•54 min
It's fair to say the last decade was the climate era of the energy transition. From the Paris Agreement to corporate net zero pledges, reducing carbon emissions dominated the global framework for deploying clean energy. But something profound is shifting. In this episode of Open Circuit , we explore how a new security-driven paradigm is replacing climate as the primary driver of energy investments. As supply chains fractured during the pandemic, Russia weaponized natural gas to Europe, and Ameri...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Five years ago, as lockdowns swept the globe, we witnessed an energy shock that destroyed oil demand, upended electricity demand patterns, and dropped global emissions by staggering levels overnight. In this episode of Open Circuit , we revisit predictions made during those early uncertain days and examine three major paradoxes that emerged. First, how staying home rewired our physical and digital lives in ways that created surprising energy impacts. While transportation emissions initially plum...
Mar 21, 2025•53 min
The residential solar industry is facing its most challenging period in years. High interest rates, sweeping policy change, and stubbornly high customer acquisition costs are all causing a contraction after years of rapid growth. In this episode of Open Circuit , we examine this market transition. We’ll look at how the industry may emerge from the current downturn — through cost reduction, community-driven models, and evolving beyond a “bad product” to something that provides real grid services....
Mar 14, 2025•49 min
Major U.S. financial institutions are backing away from climate commitments – all six largest American banks have exited the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, BlackRock has quit comparable initiatives, and the Federal Reserve has withdrawn from climate risk assessment networks. Is this merely rebranding for the Trump era, or a fundamental shift in how finance approaches sustainable investments? In this episode of Open Circuit , we examine what's driving this retreat — from political and legal pressures...
Mar 07, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Elon Musk built Tesla with help from government loans and carbon credits. Today, he's swinging a chainsaw at the very agencies that launched his empire — while directly undermining President Trump's "energy dominance" agenda. In this episode of Open Circuit , we examine the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency's indiscriminate cuts. When these cuts hit nuclear security teams and grid operators at the Bonneville Power Administration, officials had to hastily reverse course. What are ...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 5 min
