Jul 20, 2023 · 50m · green-blueprint
What’s the next big trend in clean energy?
Ramez Naam · 24m spoken David Roberts · 12m spoken Stephen Lacey · 4m spoken Lindsay Gorrill · 3m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The Carbon Copy, host Stephen Lacey features a live discussion between David Roberts and Ramez Naam on the economic inflection points, technological wildcards, and permitting bottlenecks shaping the clean energy transition, followed by an interview with CorePower CEO Lindsey Gorrill on scaling domestic battery manufacturing.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 2.3 The hosts pushing back 2.1
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 18:39 Naam dismisses bad-faith permitting fears
Naam forcefully rejects Roberts's hesitation about enabling fossil fuel builders, arguing that clean energy will easily outcompete fossil incumbents in an open build-out.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 7:44 Roberts rejects all-of-the-above cop-outRoberts refuses Naam's broad diplomatic answer about investing in everything and presses him to take a definitive stand on which firming resources will win.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 38:05 Naam mathematically rules out 1.5C targetNaam educates the audience and host on the remaining carbon budget math, explaining that five years of current emissions make avoiding 1.5C statistically impossible.
The host holds their own ▶ 29:34 Roberts cites IRA statutory language on hydrogenRoberts counters Naam's pessimism regarding Treasury rules by citing the explicit statutory wording in the IRA requiring emissions reductions for hydrogen credits.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History of Renewable Forecasting and Declining Cost Curves | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Narrative intro monologue by Stephen Lacey featuring archival audio clips of Ramez Naam outlining historic solar cost curve trends. | |
| Show Introduction and Sponsor Highlight on CorePower | 6 | 3 | 2 | 5 | David Roberts sets up the live interview and directly calls out Ramez for giving an 'all of the above cop-out', demanding specific predictions on grid firming options. | |
| Examining Space-Based Solar and Terrestrial Wireless Power | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Roberts and Naam compare wild card technologies, with Naam explaining the technical physics hurdles of microwave arrays versus laser transmission. | |
| Policy Acceleration, Permitting Barriers, and the IRA | 6 | 3 | 4 | 4 | Roberts probes concerns about aligning with bad-faith fossil actors on permitting reform, while Naam aggressively defends opening the floodgates because clean tech wins on cost. | |
| Peak Fossil Fuels, Hard-to-Abate Sectors, and Green Hydrogen | 7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Roberts demonstrates strong statutory mastery of IRA hydrogen provisions while Naam details technical pathways across steel reducing agents and electrofuels. | |
| The Prospect of Energy Abundance and Ubiquitous Power | 5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | Roberts floats the concept of energy too cheap to meter and luxury communism, but Naam reins in the optimism with seasonal latitude realities of winter solar. | |
| Climate Targets, Ecosystem Adaptation, and Solar Geoengineering | 6 | 6 | 4 | 2 | Naam delivers an extended reality check on missing the 1.5C target and makes provocative cases for active ecosystem management and solar radiation management research. | |
| Episode Credits and Transition to Sponsor Interview | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Standard sponsored interview segment hosted by Stephen Lacey speaking with CorePower CEO Lindsey Gorrill regarding their Arizona Gigafactory plans. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Lacey: Solar panel and electricity costs fell 90% in a decade
“Now, to put that in perspective, the cost per watt of solar panels and the cost of generated solar electricity fell by 90% in a decade.”
Naam: Solar costs dropped twice as fast as his 2011 10x forecast
“So my forecast was the cost of solar would drop by about a factor of 10 to 20 50, and it actually dropped twice as fast as I thought it would.”
Naam: Solar electricity costs will drop 4x by reaching one-third global generation
“So my personal forecast is the cost of solar electricity will drop by another factor of four. By the time electricity is, by the time solar is about a third of all electricity generation on Earth.”
Lacey: 99% of US coal plants cost more than new renewables
“Back in February, we made an episode about how 99% of coal plants in America are more expensive to operate than new renewables.”
Naam: Mass-produced factory cleantech will maintain rapid learning rates for decades
“I do think there's lots of reasons, not in every single cleantech, but in those, the ones we make in factories, mass-produced in high volumes, that those will have a very, very rapid learning rate for decades to come.”
Naam: Continent-scale transmission is the most underrated clean energy technology
“The most underrated of those technologies is super long duration transmission. That is probably the one that... Ultra long distance, like coast-to-coast, continent-scale transmission. It's probably the one that has the best upside and the most certainty that w…”
Naam: 12-hour energy storage will definitely be solved
“Like, 12 hour storage, I'm convinced, is like, that's going to be solved.”
Naam: Floating offshore wind is massively underrated for deep-water regions
“I think offshore wind has a huge role to play, and floating offshore wind is one of the most underrated technologies, because in deep water, you basically can't do bottom out offshore wind. So around Japan, or the U.S. West Coast, I think floating offshore win…”
Naam: Space launch costs are dropping faster than solar power costs
“Space launch is getting cheaper faster than solar. Only, only two things in history have gotten cheap faster than solar to date, which are computing and gene sequencing or gene printing. But right now, we're in a phase where the cost of space launch is actuall…”
Naam: Laser space solar is BS because lasers cannot penetrate clouds
“Lasers are BS, because lasers don't penetrate clouds and rain, so why would you do it?”
Naam: Beaming space solar with microwaves requires kilometer-square arrays
“The way to actually do it is microwaves, but the problem with microwaves is if you want to hit a target on Earth, you need these kilometer square arrays in space, and no one's ever built anything of that size in space.”
Naam: IRA spending will reach trillions due to uncapped subsidies
“It's not four and fifty billion dollars of federal spending a year. It's like trillions. Because the IRA is not a pool of money. It's a per unit subsidy. And forecasters always do what? On unit forecasts, they always underestimate it, right? So the actual size…”
Naam: Clean electricity will beat fossil fuels if permitting opens up
“Like, in an open playing field, if it's easier to build pipelines and transmission lines, Clean electricity is going to win.”
Naam: Global sales of gasoline-powered cars peaked in 2017 or 2018
“Sales of gasoline-powered cars peaks? Anybody have a guess? 2017, 20 18. It happened already.”
Naam: Total fossil fuel use and emissions will peak by 2030
“And I think we'll have peak total fossil fuels and peak emissions sometime later in this decade, ah, towards 2030.”
Naam: Global meat consumption will not decrease and will keep rising
“Like, forget about reducing meat consumption. It ain't going to happen. Meat consumption is going to keep going like this and this.”
Naam: Hydrogen cars and trucks will not be cost-competitive with EVs
“Hydrogen-powered cars and trucks? Forget about it. That's been clear for a decade. That's not going to be cost-competitive electrification.”
Naam: Aviation will probably never adopt hydrogen-powered planes
“We'll probably never make hydrogen-powered planes. They don't make any sense.”
Naam: Energy will be cheaper in the long run relative to income
“I think there's every reason to believe that in the long run, energy is going to be cheaper for people than it is today, certainly as a proportion of income.”
Naam: Odds of limiting global warming to 1.5°C are minuscule
“But the bad news is we have missed 1.5 degrees C, and I don't know how to say this anymore clearly, because there are people that will tell you that we might hit it. The odds of that are minuscule.”
Naam: Wilderness no longer exists; preserving ecosystems requires active human management
“There is no such thing as wilderness on planet Earth anymore. We have modified the climate such that if you're, if it's a forest, if it's a coral reef, if it's a wetlands, It doesn't exist in the same climactic band that that natural ecosystem evolved in. And …”
Naam: Sulfur aerosol emissions currently offset one watt per square meter of warming
“Today if you look at IPCC's numbers, all greenhouse gases account for about three watts per square meter of warming. That's human activity. The sulfur aerosols we're already emitting from ship fuels, from diesel engines, from coal plants, low altitude, they ca…”