The Exchanges

Q So this is now a two trillion dollar economy, uh, clean energy. Catherine, what does the US slice of that clean energy economy look like?

A Yeah, I would just give some numbers to this. So the U.S. Department of Energy does an energy and employment report every year, and they did one for 2024. Now, the one for 2025 hasn't come out yet. I expect it to be even more optimistic. But they showed that U.S. energy sector jobs grew three percent in 2023, which outpaces normal employment growth by by 50%. And of those jobs, clean energy and Deployment counts for about 60% of those jobs. So they grow at a rate in clean energy of, like, almost five percent, which is more than twice what the rest of the energy sector grows. And if you look at what EIA has put out in their short-term energy outlook, which they are still doing, increased generation for renewable energy is the main contributor to growth in U.S. electricity generation. Don't see that stopping. So looking at both jobs and generation and capacity, it's booming.

AI assessment note: “So looking at both jobs and generation and capacity, it's booming.”

Q So this is now a two trillion dollar economy, uh, clean energy. Catherine, what does the US slice of that clean energy economy look like?

A Yeah, I would just give some numbers to this. So the U.S. Department of Energy does an energy and employment report every year, and they did one for 2024. Now, the one for 2025 hasn't come out yet. I expect it to be even more optimistic. But they showed that U.S. energy sector jobs grew three percent in 2023, which outpaces normal employment growth by by 50%. And of those jobs, clean energy and Deployment counts for about 60% of those jobs. So they grow at a rate in clean energy of, like, almost five percent, which is more than twice what the rest of the energy sector grows. And if you look at what EIA has put out in their short-term energy outlook, which they are still doing, increased generation for renewable energy is the main contributor to growth in U.S. electricity generation. Don't see that stopping. So looking at both jobs and generation and capacity, it's booming.

AI assessment note: “clean energy and Deployment counts for about 60% of those jobs.”

Q on a sectoral level? So Catherine, um, Fatih Biral, who's the executive director of IEA, wrote in an op-ed that the world is on the cusp of a historic turning point, and that this is the first time that a peak in demand is visible for, uh, each fossil fuel this decade earlier than anticipated. So what does IEA say is pushing us toward peak fossil fuel consumption by 2030?

A Yeah, for decades we've been stuck at about 80% fossil fuels no matter what, um, but it looks like based on the steps, which are the stated policy scenarios for all of the countries, um, that, you know, internal combustion engine sales are down, um, they're below where they were before COVID, um, additions of coal and gas plants are down 50%, sales of residential gas boilers is down, heat pumps are up, there's a real momentum toward electrification. So the clean energy transition has really taken hold, and when we talk about a peak, that means after 2030, we'll still be at about 73% fossil. It just means we will then start the decline. Doesn't necessarily mean we're going to meet our net zero energy goals at all, or that we will meet the 1.5 degrees centigrade targets, but it does mean that we're on a trajectory where eventually The clean energy transition will take over where the fossil fuel industry was.

AI assessment note: “internal combustion engine sales are down... additions of coal and gas plants are down 50%”

Q Catherine, what do you think? Geothermal, underrated or overrated?

A Oh, so underrated. I totally agree with Jigger, and that liftoff report that DOE did was great. It was really, really top-notch, um, and I agree we have a lot of work to do, but there are so many solutions. You mentioned a few companies, um, Ever is a company that I work with. They're a closed-loop technology, so the cool thing about these kind of next-generation technologies is you don't have to find a reservoir. You don't have to find a hydrothermal resource. All you need is heat, so you dig down, you find heat, and guess what? If you dig far enough anywhere, In the entire world, there is heat. So Evers' first commercial project is in Gerritz Reed, Germany. They're going to produce thermal and electrical energy. They have a lot of district heating in Europe, so this is a really good solution for them, and that is not what you would consider a super, you know, thermodynamic resource in Germany, as opposed to the American West, where it's really, really good. Um, and yet that's where they're starting, and I think that's going to happen throughout the U.S. as well, in addition to the American West, where the resources are really, really good, but you need some things. You need, like, a categorical exclusion on public lands the same way that oil and gas and other renewables have. You have to have people really processing those permits, so, you know, if somebody from BLM has a sta…

AI assessment note: “Oh, so underrated.”

Q could cut the cost of a 90% clean grid by Eighty-five billion dollars by twenty-thirty-five. And, uh, Brian Deese calls it a triple win for doubling the size of the grid. So, there is a lot of excitement about these technologies, certainly a lot of barriers to how they're getting deployed within specific utilities. So, is this set of technologies underrated or overrated? Catherine, you go first on this one.

A Yeah, I work with a grid-enhancing technology company, Line Vision, and I think they're underrated. I, you did list all of these benefits, but I do think that there are these kind of elegant, less expensive options where you can get a lot more bang for your buck with existing transmission and even with new transmission, and, you know, the studies show just incredible results. So first of all, you get, like, just through dynamic line ratings, like, 15 to 20% more transmission capacity if you put dynamic line ratings in. So that's Huge right there. Then, uh, the Brattle Group did a report a couple of years ago just for Kansas and Oklahoma and found that you could enable twice as much renewable energy resource on the grid, um, avoid ninety million metric tons of CO₂, save five billion dollars a year with a six-month payback. I mean, nothing is that cheap. And create 1010 of thousands of jobs permanently operating these systems. And that's just with two states. So in 2024, RMI did a report about PJM, because PJM, as Jigar mentioned, has like a terrible interconnection queue. And they found that you could relieve 6.6 gigawatts by getting solar, wind, and storage on the grid by 20 27 and relieve the queues. It's cheaper. It would be a billion dollars annual savings on production cost. I mean, right off the bat. This is like super low hanging fruit. And the only issue that we have, be…

AI assessment note: “I work with a grid-enhancing technology company, Line Vision, and I think they're underrated.”

Q want each of you to pick a number that illustrates a trend that you're seeing play out on the ground right now. We're going to be throwing around some big, big numbers. So let's try to make it a little bit more real, uh, For folks. Um, Catherine, what do you have? Any, any numbers jump out at you that kind of reflect what you were actually seeing play out?

A Yeah, so I have two numbers. One that someone gave me. So I reached out to Albert Chung, who is an analyst, a longtime analyst at Bloomberg. He's brilliant. And I said, what do you care the most about this report? And he said he was struck by the global offshore wind investment, reaching a record 76.7 billion dollars, which was an almost 80% increase in offshore wind. Now, there was a bit of a, of a decline from the onshore segment, but the offshore went, went up pretty quickly, and that's, that's remarkable, because the, as we have talked about on the show, offshore has had some issues, and it's good to see that there is still major investment in that sector.

AI assessment note: “global offshore wind investment, reaching a record 76.7 billion dollars”

Q Okay, so there were a coalition of folks who were pushing for these more stringent requirements. Catherine, did they get what they were asking? Why does this matter? Um, explain, like, the, the, the controversy and lobbying leading up to this, and then what the outcome was relative to what folks wanted.

A Yeah, so the three pillars were not in the law. The law just stipulated that it had to be, you know, very, very low emission, but this was how they thought this is the best way to implement this. This is the, You know, Jesse Jenkins has spent a lot of time thinking about this. Other folks have looked at, you know, what would this look like? What would those three pillars look like? And so, in that regard, yes, they, they won. I mean, this is, this is going to make sure that you're getting, you're not getting blue hydrogen, uh, qualifying for three dollars a kilogram credit when it costs only one to two dollars a kilogram to produce it. So, um, that's, that's a good thing for really spurring New renewables, for spurring clean electrolysis, for making sure that this doesn't just keep, ah, you know, natural gas from continuing to produce hydrogen. So, so the, the hydrogen producers are really glad for this. So, Electric II, Air Products, um, EDP Renew was on board with this, steel producers, Maersk. I mean, a lot of folks who are trying to get to net zero are really happy about this. On the other hand, there are a lot of folks that are not happy about it, and I would say, um, Nextera, Constellation, BP, Exxon, Plug Power, which is an electrolysis manufacturer, a lot of those folks are not happy with these rules, um, for a bunch of different reasons, but part of which is, what this…

AI assessment note: “And so, in that regard, yes, they, they won.”

Q Catherine, I want to hear your choice. What's your most unpredictable story?

A No, for something completely different, which is workforce. I honestly thought after the, like, the total global stagnation from COVID, and then we had all of these bills, Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Bill, CHIPS Act, I thought there were just going to be hundreds of thousands of people waiting, ah, on their Zooms to rush in and take jobs. And it's just not been that easy. It just has been way more complicated. So, Like, 90% of solar companies are having real trouble finding skilled labor, according to the twenty-twenty-three job census, which is taking twenty-twenty-two information. But there are already shortages in builders, factory workers, electricians. We need, like, another million electricians, um, where we need a 104 113,000 construction workers, 764,000 manufacturing workers. This is across all clean energy sectors. And we have 1.7 million folks working in the fossil fuel industry. And a lot of those people are going to be transitioning to clean energy jobs of one type or another, but they don't translate very well to solar and wind jobs because they make a lot more money than solar and wind jobs. So, you know, maybe geothermal is a good option because you do, as we spoke about earlier, are able to transition those skills over quite easily to geothermal. Um, and maybe, uh, with a hydrogen fever, you could do that too. Um, But it's just a lot more tricky tha…

AI assessment note: “No, for something completely different, which is workforce. I honestly thought”

Q downfall or reversal of fortune in 2023. Then we'll go to the most unpredictable story. So something from the year that we didn't see coming. And then finally, we'll round out with our usual forecast, a trend or story that tells us something about what's to come in the near or distant future, perhaps in 2024. So Catherine, we'll start with you. What is your rising star for the year?

A My rising star is the United States government, um, and here's why. They have been working for a little over a year on trying to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, and they also had to implement the CHIPS Act and the infrastructure bill, so they had a lot on their plate, and they've really been crushing it. Um, I know everybody has been biting their fingernails and holding their breath and writing desperate comments, but it's actually working. So I would just say the hero in all of that, and I don't, I didn't know I would ever say the sentence that the hero is the IRS, but I really believe it's true. Um, they've issued guidance for as much as they possibly can in the time that they have had. So they've issued wage and apprenticeship guidance, clean vehicles of all types guidance, uh, sustainable aviation fuel, energy efficiency, and home improvements, low and middle income bonus credits, Guidance. Advanced energy projects, which affects the entire, uh, renewable energy sector. Um, manufacturing credits. Critical materials. They're just, the list goes on and on, and there's still a few more for them left to do. We, we're actually waiting for another one to hopefully drop before the end of the year, but they're really been doing a great job, and that's because they've been working in conjunction with the Department of Energy, the technology people there, and all the stakehold…

AI assessment note: “My rising star is the United States government, um, and here's why.”

Q them and, and figure out how positive the outlook for electric vehicles is. Um, so Catherine, we're approaching, um, A million EVs on the road in the US. Quarterly sales are, are slowing, but they're still very strong, and we've seen tens of billions of dollars in factories built to serve EV production, and yet we're seeing these headlines about electric cars slowing and automakers worried. What is happening here?

A Yeah, I, I do think there's a mismatch of what the press headlines are and what's really happening, because September set a new high for EV sales. It's the strongest on record. It's 65, seven percent higher than last September, so 136,000 EVs were sold. I mean, the numbers just show that it's growing and growing and not stopping. And granted, you know, there's, you It, it takes time from building factories to getting things out the door, but they've, the EV manufacturers have done a pretty good job getting, getting models out. Every year we get more models that are available. Um, as time goes on, more tax credits come into effect so that, you know, people can take advantage of lower prices. And what that does is, is create this need for also for more competition. So you're seeing that. And so when you see ebbs and flows, The press loves to pick up on things like that, and the New York Times had this headline that it was like, you know, new law, supercharged electric car manufacturing but not sales. I mean, I just think that's a little bit of a red herring, and, you know, we're getting there, and just seeing that last month was the highest month on record proves that out.

AI assessment note: “I do think there's a mismatch of what the press headlines are and what's really happening”

Q You are not just an ordinary pundit. You are someone who has been so heavily involved in this process for a decade and a half, and you have actually worked on many of the programs, writing language around these programs that made it into this bill. What has that process been like to get to the point of where we are?

A Well, one thing I've been working on forever, I think the first energy storage tax credit was introduced by Senator Wyden in 2009. And I was in that period of time working for what was then called the Electricity Storage Association. I was their policy person and led a bunch of efforts to try to get an energy storage tax credit standalone over the finish line. And that, this, like, crawling across broken glass. In the meantime, It's, it's turned from a science project into an actual industry, and technology has progressed, become cheaper, and it's been incredibly satisfying to see that finally get over the finish line, and also to see people like Senator Martin Heinrich take it on and make it bigger and better than it was. Um, so we've been able to accumulate a lot more champions in the Hill, both in the Senate and the House. We've been able to socialize a lot of these programs, whether it was energy storage, there's also a microgrid Credit and interconnection credit, which, you know, often interconnecting, as wonky as this is, interconnecting a lot of projects can just make them not pencil out because of the cost of the utilities exact on the renewable energy industry. So there are just so many things in this that are really, um, really important and game-changing to the entire industry, and it's great to finally see them all together getting done.

AI assessment note: “And that, this, like, crawling across broken glass... incredibly satisfying to see that finally”

Q We're going to take a brief pause here, and after the break, we'll talk about the most impactful policies from this new bill and what comes next for implementation. So there's a long list of policies here. If you could pick one or two of the most impactful from the list, what, what would they be?

A So there's sort of three things that I think are going to have the most impact overall. The biggest, I think, is the ten-year window for the tax credits. That's just going to give a runway. It will give a level of certainty to investors and to developers and to industry. That, to me, is the biggest thing. Remember, since Waxman Markey and even before then, when the production tax credit for wind, the solar investment tax credit, when all of those were Were percolating along, and they kept waxing and waning. Depending on what Congress was doing, they would then expire and be limping along, and the industry would come to a grinding halt. This is 10 years. That's huge. The second big thing, um, which was something I worked on a lot with the coalition that I'm so proud of as a solar access coalition, were all the equity provisions. So equity is one of those things that you can't just Tag on as just, and we're going to make sure everyone has access. You can't do that. You have to be really intentional about what you do. And so there are bonus credits for communities that are low income and for energy communities. There also is funding set aside to develop in those communities and for those communities to have access. And so I think that a lot of the equity provisions are huge in this bill. And then the third thing that I mentioned before is this methane pollution fee. I mean, methan…

AI assessment note: “The biggest, I think, is the ten-year window for the tax credits.”

Q limit Warming to 1.5 to two degrees Celsius. And it would mean 11 terawatts of new renewables capacity, which is coming from mostly solar and wind by 2030, and a trillion dollars in capital per year. So those are big numbers. What does it mean on the ground? And is it achievable? So, um, Catherine, to you first, what does this tripling actually look like? Walk us through the target.

A Yeah, so if you think about from 20 10 to 20 22, that was 12 years, as you said, and we were able to triple renewables then, and we have eight years left to triple again. And I think what you need to understand is that there are lots and lots of incentives now baked into that, and there's a lot of progress that has already been made. So if you look at what FERC has said, they say, and this doesn't even include rooftop solar, which is Over 30% of solar. That solar provided 42.4% of the total new domestic generating capacity in 2023 alone. Now, granted, that's just solar, although solar is positioned to be the bulk of it, and it's only for the U.S. But I think we're certainly in the U.S. poised to be able to do that. I think globally, Europe, Brazil has already committed to doing this. China is already doing this. I think Southeast Asia and Africa are gonna have, um, a little more challenge, and so we need to set up whatever we need to make sure that they're able to triple renewables, but you think of this mostly as solar and wind, although there are lots of other renewables that need to come into the mix, like geothermal and hydropower and biomass.

AI assessment note: “we were able to triple renewables then, and we have eight years left to triple again.”

Q limit Warming to 1.5 to two degrees Celsius. And it would mean 11 terawatts of new renewables capacity, which is coming from mostly solar and wind by 2030, and a trillion dollars in capital per year. So those are big numbers. What does it mean on the ground? And is it achievable? So, um, Catherine, to you first, what does this tripling actually look like? Walk us through the target.

A Yeah, so if you think about from 20 10 to 20 22, that was 12 years, as you said, and we were able to triple renewables then, and we have eight years left to triple again. And I think what you need to understand is that there are lots and lots of incentives now baked into that, and there's a lot of progress that has already been made. So if you look at what FERC has said, they say, and this doesn't even include rooftop solar, which is Over 30% of solar. That solar provided 42.4% of the total new domestic generating capacity in 2023 alone. Now, granted, that's just solar, although solar is positioned to be the bulk of it, and it's only for the U.S. But I think we're certainly in the U.S. poised to be able to do that. I think globally, Europe, Brazil has already committed to doing this. China is already doing this. I think Southeast Asia and Africa are gonna have, um, a little more challenge, and so we need to set up whatever we need to make sure that they're able to triple renewables, but you think of this mostly as solar and wind, although there are lots of other renewables that need to come into the mix, like geothermal and hydropower and biomass.

AI assessment note: “we're certainly in the U.S. poised to be able to do that”

Q engineering around those trade-offs. Um, how do you think about that framing? I mean, it seems to be disappearing a bit. Uh, it's a really tired debate, um, And, ah, it's, it's going away, but it's, I think people are still in their camps to some degree. Like, how do you think about that framing, and like, how does it fit into actually how we manage the grid coming up?

A Yeah, so I think that's a good way to put the question, because there, it is a framing issue. So, you know, when renewables were first starting out, the nuclear industry was the incumbent. Um, I worked for a utility for 10 years, and that was how we got most of our power, was through nuclear energy, and it was stable, and it was there, and renewables were kind of this other little thing, and they were also very much Pushed by the environmental community, and the environmental community was very opposed to nuclear because of the fuel issue, and so that was, I think, the first big driver was the environmental community wanting to make sure that renewables came in and took more of the share of generation. Now, you know, it's, they call it big wind. I mean, wind and solar are requiring an enormous footprint. There's, there is pushback, Those industries are grown up, and they're realizing there are a lot more people who are going to push back on us because now we're being seen as the incumbent that just wants to grow. And I think that the reality is when you talk to a developer, wind or solar developer, they're always thinking about how are we going to be able to maximize what we're doing, how are we going to be able to make sure that we don't have to curtail, um, that we generate good revenue, and they have to find partners to do that. Some of those partners are going to be in stor…

AI assessment note: “Some of those partners are going to be in storage, but some of them are going to be in nuclear”

Q So Catherine, you've worked closely with DOE over the course of your career. You worked at NREL at one point earlier in your career. You're familiar with how the government thinks about commercialization. Like, what are the tried and true strategies that influence the liftoff plan? And like, what feels new, like a meet the moment kind of thing?

A Yeah, so you have to get in the Wayback Machine with me to go back to when I was at NREL, and I feel like that was the day when you really, DOE was tackling one valley of death. So you would, you would develop the technology, and I worked a lot on cellulosic biofuels, um, I worked a little bit on geothermal too, and these are really difficult, just as nuclear is, to get off the ground. These are big, capital-intensive processes. And we would give money to build a pilot plant and, and then just say, all right, you got your pilot, let's go. And there was not a recognition that actually there are many more valleys of death. You kind of have to follow along and go to the next one and let the government come in then. I mean, this is an, as you said, an iterative process, right? So there are lots of valley, different valleys of death. And I think that's what this liftoff report shows is that there are different places where we have to engage. And also, we have to have the private sector with us all along. You can't just have them come in someplace down the road. They have to be part of the entire journey from the very beginning to when you're really to scale. And I think the Liftoff reports do a really good job of shining a light on that, on the fact that we need to have the government engage all the way, and you look at what the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program is doing, and e…

AI assessment note: “I think that's what this liftoff report shows is that there are different places”

Q Catherine, you for so long have been focused on the what? Getting policy passed. I mean, you've, you've worked on implementation of programs throughout your career, but so much of what you've done is, is about getting policy actually passed, and now we have this monumental piece that does put us as close to a wartime footing as anything we've had before. What does the how mean to you now?

A So one of the big differences in what this bill did and what the statute will do than others that we had, which were far more punitive and regulatory in construct, is that it really does put a lot of benefits in the hands of consumers. So there are a lot of decisions in the hands of consumers. There are also a lot of ways in which low-middle-income Customers, communities that have been historically disadvantaged can all take advantage of this, and that means we have to design the programs correctly, so the bill promises billions of dollars of savings for consumers on their bills, and helping millions and millions of Americans achieve electrification that would not have normally had it, and really bringing everybody forward, transitioning communities that heretofore were never going to be transitioned, And in fact, the Department of Energy, in every single grant that they're doing, even with the infrastructure bill, is requiring 20% of every grant to be, how are you involving the community? How are you dealing with the workforce? So really making everybody who deploys a project have to think about it very intentionally, and I think that's what we're gonna have to do as we implement, and that's what I spend a lot of my time doing now, is connecting the dots of what was intended by what we tried to get through Congress to what the actual language says And making sure that the resu…

AI assessment note: “that's what I spend a lot of my time doing now, is connecting the dots”

Q talking about the history, there's one other thing that really stands out, and that's the way we're framing this bill versus Waxman-Markey. Waxman-Markey was often talking about how to make coal or fossil fuels more expensive and how to put renewables within reach. Now we're talking about clean energy, climate tech, renewable energy as inherently deflationary, as a tool for bringing costs down for people. Does that resonate for you?

A Absolutely. Waxman-Markey was seen as a punishment, whereas this is seen as an opportunity. And remember, a lot has happened in the intervening years. So during the Obama administration, he decided instead, all right, let's let the EPA start actually implementing Clean Air Act legislation, which means let's put mercury and other air toxic standards in place. Let's do a clean power plan. Let's put all of these in place to try to at least Seek some enforcement. Now, we know Trump rolled back a lot of those through the courts, but in the meantime, we had a few really key things. One is that fracking, gas fracking became quite cheap. That technology really changed and made the price of coal go up. All these regulatory initiatives also made the price of coal go up. And finally, something that a lot of people have been talking about is that we began to get much more grassroots engagement and support And all of that environmental grassroots activism really also was sort of the third piece that in the meantime was building up and helping to get us to where we are now.

AI assessment note: “Waxman-Markey was seen as a punishment, whereas this is seen as an opportunity.”

Q folks in progressive circles were outraged, and within the climate community, many people took to Twitter and stipulated that the bill is dead, that he wrote off the next generation's future, that somehow this bill was done, and that's not what happened. Shortly after, Senator Manchin and the White House started talking again, and it looks like, headed into this year, we could be back on track. Where are we?

A So remember, Senator Manchin has not quibbled much other than with the clean electricity standard. With the climate provisions, he has been supportive of the tax provisions. He said publicly that we need more funding for energy storage and transmission. So that is not something I think he has really come down hard on. There are other pieces, the social programs that he's had more issue with, the spending levels he's had issue with, but not with the climate piece. I think we'll get this done. I'm very hopeful that they'll work out the differences that they have, which I don't think are very many, and that we'll get a real bill that takes serious climate action and that codifies a lot of what we've needed to codify over the last decade.

AI assessment note: “I think we'll get this done. I'm very hopeful that they'll work out”

Q tech industry, where they cozy up to the president, maybe take a deal that was already in the works and say, thank you, President Trump. We wouldn't have been able to make this deal without you. You know, use basic flattery to get him on your side. Um, we, we see almost no strategy at this point. How, how should the industry react? How is it reacting at this stage?

A Oh, I kind of disagree with the premise of that, because last week there was a huge Hill Day with all the clean energy groups coming together with hundreds of people having hundreds of meetings on the Hill to really push for renewable energy dominance, clean energy dominance, um, and so they are actually becoming much more organized. They are, um, sort of honing their messaging to try to be not dissimilar from the new administration's messaging, um, I think that's not the only thing we need to do, but they're definitely doing that. I think that there are a lot of other things that we can be doing continually, and not just the industry. So from the industry standpoint, making sure that your members of Congress and senators understand the impact that your industry is having in their district or state is super important. Those are real jobs. Those are people who live in their communities and vote for them. So that is really, really important for people to understand. It's also important for people just themselves personally to be calling in and letting their members of Congress know that they care about whatever it is you care about. This is a democracy. This is how democracy works, is you call people, and I think Congress so far has not stepped up to a lot of what the administration is doing, but I think they're going to have to, and I think you start to see some of the chinks in…

AI assessment note: “last week there was a huge Hill Day with all the clean energy groups”

Q in regulatory purgatory. Even with nuclear's long struggles with costs and engineering talent and regulation, Many believe this policy win plus load growth is creating real tailwinds for the industry. Constellation CEO says nukes and data centers are like peanut butter and jelly. So, nuclear. There, I suspect there are some very strong opinions out there among our listenership about this one. Overrated or underrated? Catherine, over to you first.

A Oh, I had a feeling you were going to call on me because I know what Jigar's going to say. I've always thought nuclear is overrated. Like, that's just My going in position. I've never worked on it, never been, you know, I, uh, I certainly am interested in developments in nuclear, but, um, it's not something I work on or advocate for at all. You know, it is 19% of the U.S. electrical, uh, resource out there, so it's like producing power, doing a good job. There are a lot of plants out there operating a long time. I know there's, there are not a lot of technology, there are a lot of technologies coming along. Um, the ADVANCE Act does simplify some of the NRC rules. Now, Like some of the environmental groups are saying this is not great for the environment and for the waste issue and could skirt some of the safety concerns. But, you know, given that and the 90,000,900 million dollars that DOE is going to devote to SMRs, like maybe it'll go somewhere. I still just think it takes too long and it's too expensive, but I'm sure Jigar has a very different view on it.

AI assessment note: “I've always thought nuclear is overrated. Like, that's just My going in position.”

Q probably prop up an entire news organization just focusing on implementation. Um, I guess I, I just sorting through all of this, it's hard to kind of compare what has happened with expectations. So like generally when the guidance has come out, has it met industry expectations? Is, is it on time? Like how would you actually grade the, uh, The guidance and, and how these programs are coming together.

A So I think it's been a little bit of a mixed bag, but even the mixed part of the bag isn't like a C, it's like maybe a B. Um, and some of it's even higher than that, I would say. Part of it is simply that no matter what you write in guidance, there are always unanswered questions. So certainty is just of absolute paramount importance, right, in the business community. And I think Where there's any lack of certainty, people need to know the right answer. You don't want to have a situation where you're not sure whether you're going to be able to access a tax credit and have to get some kind of private letter ruling or something. That's just way too big of a lift, and they don't have time to do those right now. So you want the IRS to get it right now. Um, and so there have been some, some things where, like with FAQ, so they'll put out a, you When somebody, when everybody's asking, wait, does this qualify, or does that qualify? They can always respond with a, with an answer to that question, um, that's public, publicly available. Yes, these things do qualify. These other things don't qualify. In general, I feel like the guidance has been pretty strong. I think it's been clear. I think there's some places we need to, uh, get more clarification, but honestly, there's some places where the law was not clear, and so the There's some things we can talk about later about how the law, th…

AI assessment note: “So I think, uh, on the whole, they've been doing B plus, A minus”

Q So how are we going to use all of this renewable electricity? If we look at End uses. It's roughly split in half. Half of it will displace fossil energy demand, and another half will be used to meet rising electricity demand. Um, where's that new demand gonna be coming from, and why is serving it with renewables so critical?

A Have you heard of the word electrification? Everything is getting electrified, right? Everything from buildings to transportation to industry, and from the power production side all the way to the internal processes and use side in industry, in industry specifically. I mean, demand is rising, and that is because of electrification. It's also because We are reshoring, so manufacturing is growing in the U.S., and we have to be able to supply data centers, semiconductor plants, battery, EV manufacturing, all these plants that are coming here, and globally, too. We need to be able to supply those with clean energy, and so there's plenty of demand, and part of the issue is, how do we manage that? How do we meet the demand that is growing? And the way to do that is, of course, through energy efficiency.

AI assessment note: “Everything from buildings to transportation to industry... data centers, semiconductor plants”

Q in this question about how Republicans are framing the issue, partly because from what I've heard, ah, from people working on the Hill, you included, there's a very big difference between how they're framing this publicly and politically and how they're actually negotiating and talking about it behind the scenes and responding to companies who come visit them in their offices and so forth. So how big is that disconnect?

A Yeah, so just to put this in perspective, I care a lot less about what Tim Scott says as a presidential candidate, because it doesn't matter, as opposed to how he votes in the Senate. South Carolina is part of the battery belt that Maria's written about, which is, these are companies that are building factories in his state as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill. And it's because of those that they want to build. And that's it. And the issue is, like, can he connect the dots to show up at a ribbon cutting, which they probably will show up to a ribbon cutting, whether or not they admit that it's part of this law, um, and vote the right way. So I just use totally different language. I don't talk about climate change. You know, I can't because I will pull my hair out. Instead, I talk about technology innovation. I talk about resilience. Cost effectiveness, jobs, economic growth. I mean, there's so many ways that you can talk about the clean energy transition that doesn't have to bring up something that has become a political pinball.

AI assessment note: “I care a lot less about what Tim Scott says as a presidential candidate”

Q automakers are being totally honest about what this would do to the cost of electric vehicle manufacturing, and whether these wage increases would hurt their ability to roll out mass electric vehicles, certainly there is a tension here, and it could hurt production. Like, do environmental groups grapple with How much to support labor versus how much to just support getting as many electric vehicles on the road as possible?

A I haven't really seen that recently at all, and just keep in mind that the UAW has a really long history of environmental activism. They were pivotal in making and planning the first Earth Day, um, so they have long been really engaged on environmental issues, and I think that in those large environmental groups that I mentioned are all very aware that we have to have a workforce that Is able to compete with the global workforce, and that's where we, I think, see some tension is more about, you know, how workers are paid overseas rather than here, and do we really take seriously on shoring and wanting to make sure that we have a sustainable and a workforce that won't change jobs, that we can, that are real, is really built for retention, and in order to do that, they have to support the communities, the workers, their health care, all of those benefits that come with it, so that they can be part of the clean energy transition, and I think That will actually solidify a much faster transition and evolution to EVs than if we didn't do that. I think that's what we're seeing.

AI assessment note: “I haven't really seen that recently at all”

Q Alright, so we'll talk about what is happening. Catherine, let's talk about what you're seeing out there. Like, the particulars of this story are not unique to nuclear. You're working with lots of companies in long duration storage, um, that are working on difficult business models, you know, pre-commercial technologies. What are the sticking points right now for the new crop of entrepreneurs working on deep decarbonization?

A Yeah, and I think of transmission, too, because you, you talk about a long time horizon. That is just a killer for folks who are trying to do new transmission technologies and building transmission. So, yeah, I mean, part of it is market uncertainty. Knowing that the market's going to be there when you're ready for it is crucial. The time to market is also really important. You have to have a lot of patience, patient investment, but But also just patience in the way you're doing it. And I think of, you know, I work on public policy, but I just think of public policy as one tool. So you think of, you know, someone has this great invention, and there are lots of really cool, interesting things happening in this industry, and you're seeing a lot of deals right now, like up 400% the number of deals that are being cut in for nuclear technologies. But then you not just have the, you don't just have the technology. You have to then have, how are you going to build your business model? Who is going to pay for this? How are you going to bring both public funding and private funding together to make it happen? And then what are all those policies that are either going to help you, and so let's say a tax credit would be helpful, and think of the ones that are going to be barriers, and that would include all of these permitting regulations that are out there That the nuclear industry has t…

AI assessment note: “part of it is market uncertainty. Knowing that the market's going to be there”

Q Alright, so we'll talk about what is happening. Catherine, let's talk about what you're seeing out there. Like, the particulars of this story are not unique to nuclear. You're working with lots of companies in long duration storage, um, that are working on difficult business models, you know, pre-commercial technologies. What are the sticking points right now for the new crop of entrepreneurs working on deep decarbonization?

A Yeah, and I think of transmission, too, because you, you talk about a long time horizon. That is just a killer for folks who are trying to do new transmission technologies and building transmission. So, yeah, I mean, part of it is market uncertainty. Knowing that the market's going to be there when you're ready for it is crucial. The time to market is also really important. You have to have a lot of patience, patient investment, but But also just patience in the way you're doing it. And I think of, you know, I work on public policy, but I just think of public policy as one tool. So you think of, you know, someone has this great invention, and there are lots of really cool, interesting things happening in this industry, and you're seeing a lot of deals right now, like up 400% the number of deals that are being cut in for nuclear technologies. But then you not just have the, you don't just have the technology. You have to then have, how are you going to build your business model? Who is going to pay for this? How are you going to bring both public funding and private funding together to make it happen? And then what are all those policies that are either going to help you, and so let's say a tax credit would be helpful, and think of the ones that are going to be barriers, and that would include all of these permitting regulations that are out there That the nuclear industry has t…

AI assessment note: “part of it is market uncertainty... The time to market is also really important.”

Q to people in this room and the folks who listen to this show, but I wonder, Catherine, like, does that seem obvious politically in Washington or to Republican governors in the states who, you know, are going to be in states where they need to implement these programs or attract these companies? Um, what, what, what do you think about how this framing lands in the context of American politics?

A Yeah, so there are different places where it will land differently, right? So there's a reason that's called the Inflation Reduction Act, and that was a brilliant maneuver, um, to say, like, this really is going to address our economic crisis, and try to get us back on our feet, and get us building big things, and I think governors want to do that. They're not going to Say, the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Bill are helping me do this, but they're still on board with whatever comes, whatever ribbon cuttings come into their state, and a lot of them are creating the environment in which you want to work, and you think about states like South Carolina with Battery Alley, with all these companies going down there to build plants, like, it's an ecosystem that's really strong, and it's because South Carolina decided to We want to encourage these people to come down here. We want to encourage these companies, and a lot of red states are doing that. That's really important. Um, but I think what we're going to see is, you know, as, as we go forward, the need for the private sector, as Jigar said, to engage more, because I think the private sector is so used to the government not doing this, and not being as helpful, that it really, there's like not a lot of muscle memory there. The federal government was always on the early stage. Like, we're gonna get you the ARPA-E fun…

AI assessment note: “They're not going to Say, the Inflation Reduction Act... but they're still on board”

Q Catherine, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse tweeted shortly after we heard the news about Manchin's decision that, uh, with legislative climate options now closed, it's now time for executive beast mode. Executive beast mode. What is, what does that mean to you?

A So the first thing that the executive beast has to do is hire more people faster. They have been awful about getting people on board. All of these agencies that have to take on these huge tasks already are, do not have enough people for just to implement the infrastructure bill. I mean, we need many, many more people, and this is one way people, younger people can get engaged too. All these people graduating from college apply for jobs in the government, And then government, hire them. It's taking forever. They also haven't had enough people nominated for leadership positions, so there's a, there's a big leadership gap, too, in a lot of these agencies, and I feel like if you can get some of those, some of those people on board, if you can get, um, all of your, your troops lined up, you can get a lot more work done and do a lot of the things that Sam mentioned.

AI assessment note: “the first thing that the executive beast has to do is hire more people faster”

Q the moment. Um, so, You know, obviously, oil and gas companies are going to extract more when prices are high, even with some of these longer term shifts that Jigar identified. So is there something that, like, needs to happen on a policy level in the immediate term or in the coming years to encourage more of that spending to head over into renewables and hydrogen or other drop-in fuels?

A It's interesting because globally, it's really different depending on where you are. So the EU, right now, it's six dollars equivalent gallon gasoline. Norway is at 90% EVs. They've done this massive transition, and yet they're one of the biggest oil producers. They're not going to stop producing oil. They're not going to stop selling it. They're going to increase it. They have 50 more years of oil, and yet they've already transitioned to electrification. So there are just so many other dynamics at play in Europe. The heat pump market has gone up 40%. The heat pump, people cannot install them fast enough because of the price of oil and gas over there. In the U.S., it's slightly different But what we have done is we've put a lot of policy and market mechanisms in place that can change those dynamics. So we have funding for projects. We have tax credits for more alternative fuels like hydrogen. We have a lot already in place. I think we still have to kind of see how that pans out, because hydrogen is still very expensive, and that, that's going to take a lot of work to get it to be as cost-effective as, like, renewable natural gas or biofuels. So I think, and more drop-in type fuels so I think we have to sort of see where it goes for hydrogen, how DOE, um, is able to implement those hydrogen hubs and look at the various types of hydrogen. We also need to look at other kinds of te…

AI assessment note: “we've put a lot of policy and market mechanisms in place that can change those dynamics”