Every week, Heatmap News Executive Editor Robinson Meyer and Princeton University Professor and energy systems expert Jesse Jenkins make sense of the biggest shift of our time -- navigating the energy transition away from fossil fuels. Drawing on their years of experience reporting on and researching climate change and decarbonization, Meyer and Jenkins unpack the most important issues of the week and how the impacts of climate change and efforts to address it are transforming our economy, politics, and society at large. Music by Adam Kromelow.
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
The Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, is the biggest investment in clean energy in American history. It is also in danger. In January, the Trump administration and a GOP Congress will take over the federal government — and they have made a variety of promises about how they’ll disrupt the law, ranging from full repeal to a more “surgical” reform approach. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk with Kristina Costa , who has worked since 2022 to ...
It’s been a news-filled few weeks — so it’s time for a roundup. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk about what Trump’s cabinet selections might mean for his climate policy and whether permitting reform could still happen. Then Rob chats with Corey Cantor, senior EV analyst at BloombergNEF, about promising Q3 sales for U.S. automakers, General Motors’ turnaround, and how much the Trump administration might dent America’s EV uptake. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the fo...
Here’s the bad news: The world is almost certainly going to miss the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The needed emissions cuts are too large and the direction of policy too slow to lead to any other outcome. In the next few decades, global warming will slip past the 1.5 degree mark — and temperatures will keep rising. What does that mean? What comes next? And how should we feel about that? On this week’s epi...
The rollbacks are coming. Donald Trump’s incoming administration is expected to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, weaken the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules for power plants and tailpipe pollution, and — potentially — rewrite or repeal big swaths of the Inflation Reduction Act. Each of those actions would seem to provide an opening for the world’s No. 1 polluter — China — to assert global leadership and zip ahead in the next generation of clean energy technology. How wil...
Last night, Donald Trump secured a second term in the White House. He campaigned on an aggressively pro-fossil -fuel agenda, promising to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark 2022 climate law, and roll back Environmental Protection Agency rules governing power plant and car and truck pollution. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob pick through the results of the election and try to figure out where climate advocates go from here. What will Trump 2.0 mean for the fed...
It’s all happening. The presidential election is a week away, and our cohost Jesse Jenkins is back from vacation. There is so much to talk about in the world of decarbonization and energy. So we tried to catch up on all of it. Are EV sales starting to rebound in the U.S.? What’s up with the Cybertruck? And what about Senator Joe Manchin’s permitting reform bill? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob attempt to discuss all those questions and more. Peak oil demand — the IRA’s focus o...
Over the past two months, the country’s biggest tech companies have announced a flurry of deals with advanced and conventional nuclear companies. At the same time, Democratic candidates running for federal office — including Kamala Harris and a handful of Senate candidates — have touted their support of building new nuclear power plants. Has nuclear’s moment finally arrived? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, we have Josh Freed , the senior vice president of Third Way’s climate and energy prog...
What’s next for the Biden administration — and for climate policy in the United States? Should Democrats negotiate with Republicans over permitting reform, even if it means making concessions to fossil fuel interests? And how should the country’s trade policy handle the problem of carbon pollution? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob speaks with Ali Zaidi , the national climate advisor to President Joe Biden. Zaidi leads the White House Climate Policy Office, which coordinates domestic clim...
This episode delves into Heatmap's "Decarbonize Your Life" project, which identifies six high-leverage actions individuals can take to combat climate change, focusing on maximizing systemic impact rather than simply minimizing personal harm. The discussion covers the rationale behind these actions, including switching to EVs, improving home energy efficiency, and adopting e-bikes, while also explaining why flying was excluded. Guests share insights on the challenges of quantifying emissions and the nuances of climate-friendly technologies like heat pumps.
This is a special Hurricane Helene edition of Shift Key. Our regular programming will resume next week. Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene made landfall, we are still coming to terms with the scale of its destruction. The storm killed at least 182 people, making it the deadliest cyclone to make landfall in the continental United States since Katrina. From Tampa Bay to Asheville, North Carolina, it caused the worst hurricane-related damage in a century. Why was Hurricane Helene so bad? Why did ...
In just over a month, America will elect hundreds of thousands of people to state, county, and municipal offices. While those elections might lack the splashiness of the race for the White House or Congress, they could shape how and whether the United States fights climate change. So which elections matter most? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob speak with Caroline Spears , the executive director of Climate Cabinet, a group that tries to do ‘Moneyball for climate policy,’ analyz...
It’s potentially one of the most important — but least understood — provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, and it’s finally out in the world. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency spent $27 billion to set up new green banks across the country. These new lending institutions could direct billions of dollars to supercharging decarbonization, financing new solar farms, geothermal projects, EV chargers, and more. They’ll also recycle their funding indefinitely, meaning they will likely...
Geothermal is getting closer to the big time. Last week, Fervo Energy — arguably the country’s leading enhanced geothermal company — announced that its Utah demonstration project had achieved record production capacity. On the whole, enhanced geothermal — which borrows drilling techniques from the oil and gas industry — seems poised to become a player on America’s coming clean, 24/7 power grid. Why is geothermal so hot? How soon could it appear — and what advantages does it have other zero-carbo...
This episode of Shift Key delves into the US interconnection queue, an increasingly clogged system that severely delays connecting new wind, solar, and battery projects to the power grid. Experts Tyler Norris and Claire Wayner explain how outdated "first-come, first-serve" methodologies, lack of data, and speculative project submissions lead to multi-year delays and billions in increased costs for consumers. They discuss potential fixes, including Texas's "energy-only" model, FERC Order 2023 reforms, and the critical need for proactive transmission planning and comprehensive policy changes.
You don’t need us to say it: The 2024 election will have enormous stakes for America’s climate policy and the planet’s climate. But how well can we quantify those stakes? What would a Trump presidency — or a Harris presidency, for that matter — really mean for the country’s emissions trajectory? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob speak with Sonia Aggarwal , the chief executive officer of Energy Innovation, a climate policy think tank that operates across North America, Europe, an...
It’s time to start talking about a big year for climate politics and policy: 2025. No matter who wins this fall’s elections, next year’s executive and legislative climate policy will be huge for America’s decarbonization strategy. Congress is all but guaranteed to negotiate over key parts of the country’s tax code, and whoever controls the White House will have to finalize the Inflation Reduction Act’s last few big programs. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob are joined by Josh F...
Democrats are gathering in Chicago this week for their quadrennial convention and to celebrate Kamala Harris’s nomination for president. This year’s convention will look different from 2020’s for many reasons — but one of them is that we’re likely to hear far less about climate change. Unlike in 2020, when President Joe Biden described global warming as one of “four overlapping crises” confronting the country, Harris has been more subtle when discussing it. So … is that a problem? Should we be f...
Two years ago this week, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in clean energy and climate mitigation in American history. It contained roughly two dozen new or expanded tax credits that will — if the forecasts bear out — provide hundreds of billions of dollars in funding over the next decade. The administration is now rushing to finalize those provisions before the November election. Perhaps no official has been more central to setting up those tax credi...
The world uses about 30 billion tons of concrete every year — more than any other material except water. It is the most ubiquitous human-made substance in the global economy. It’s also a huge climate problem. Producing cement, which is the key ingredient in concrete, generates roughly 8% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions. Cody Finke has a plan to change that. He is the chief executive officer and cofounder of Brimstone, a startup that says it can cheaply produce ordinary Portland cement ...
Shipping is the backbone of the modern economy. At least 80% of all goods worldwide are shipped as ocean cargo, and the global economy rises and falls on the free movement of gigantic ships across the sea. But container ships and bulk carriers burn what’s known as bunker fuel, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels. The international shipping industry generates 3% of global carbon emissions, a proportion that’s projected to rise through the century. Most proposals to decarbonize ocean freight have foc...
Jesse is on vacation until August, so this is a special, Rob-only summer episode of Shift Key. Over the past few weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has profoundly changed how the federal government does its day-to-day work. In a series of landmark rulings, the high court sharply curtailed the ability of government agencies — including the Environmental Protection Agency — to write and enforce rules and regulations. That will change how the federal government oversees the products we buy, the air we b...
Jesse is on vacation until August, so this is a special, Rob-only summer episode of Shift Key. — The far right is rising across Europe. The global order seems to be deteriorating. And American politics is careening toward a crisis. Where does climate policy go from here? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with two leaders at Breakthrough Energy, the Bill Gates-funded climate venture capital and advocacy group. They are Ann Mettler , a former EU official who is now Breakthrough’s vice...
Congress just passed perhaps its biggest support for zero-carbon energy since the Inflation Reduction Act. The ADVANCE Act, which the Senate adopted overwhelmingly last week, aims to keep America at the cutting edge of the global nuclear industry by cutting regulatory fees, making it easier for U.S. companies to build nuclear power plants abroad, and reforming the agency that oversees it all, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk with Ryan Nor...
China’s electric vehicle industry has driven itself to the center of the global conversation. Its automakers produce dozens of affordable, technologically advanced electric vehicles that rival — and often beat — anything coming out of Europe or North America. The United States and the European Union have each levied tariffs on its car exports in the past few months, hoping to avoid a “China shock” to their domestic car industries. Ilaria Mazzocco has watched China’s EV industry grow from a small...
Hosts Rob Meyer and Jesse Jenkins discuss the critical importance of electricity rate design in decarbonization efforts, particularly for rooftop solar. They explain how current US policies lead to high solar installation costs and unfair cost shifts to non-solar households. Jenkins proposes reforms including dynamic hourly pricing and fixed network charges, alongside market deregulation and streamlined permitting, to make solar cheaper and more effectively integrate clean energy into the grid. The episode also touches on the political challenges of these changes and the need for evolving policies.
Rooftop solar is four times more expensive in America than it is in other countries. It’s also good for the climate. Should we even care about its high cost? Yes, says Severin Borenstein, an economist and the director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In a recent blog post, he argued that the high cost of rooftop solar will shift nearly $4 billion onto the bills of low- and middle-income Californians who don’t have rooftop solar. ...
Why isn’t rooftop solar cheaper in America? In Australia in 2024, a standard rooftop system can cost as little as $0.90 per watt. In the U.S., a similar system might go for $4 per watt. If America could come even close to Australia’s rooftop solar prices, then we would be able to decarbonize the power system much faster than we are now. Mary Powell has the answers. She is the chief executive officer of Sunrun , a $2.6 billion company that is the largest rooftop solar and battery installer in the...
Transmission has been one of the biggest obstacles of decarbonizing the power grid in America. In the past week, however, the country has taken two big steps toward finally removing it. Last week, the Department of Energy published a list of 10 high-priority areas for grid development, called National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, designed to help accelerate some of the most annoying aspects of the siting process. Then on Monday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission passed a new ...
Tesla is now facing its worst crisis in years. Last week, CEO Elon Musk laid off the automaker’s roughly 500-person Supercharger team and what remained of its policy and new vehicle teams. Before that, it reported its first-quarter financial results — and they were even worse than the lackluster performance that investors were expecting. Already this year, Tesla has cut around 10% of its employees. Now Musk is promising that it will shift toward becoming an “AI” company. Does Tesla, long a stalw...
One of the most important pieces of the Biden administration’s climate policy has arrived: On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules restricting climate pollution from coal-fired plants and natural gas plants that haven’t been built yet. The rules will eliminate more than a billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution by the middle of the century. They are the long-awaited “stick” in the Biden administration’s carrots-and-sticks climate policy. So how do the rules work? Why d...
