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Why is clean electrification, the most exciting, dynamic, hopeful sector of the US economy, still such a 98-pound weakling in DC backroom fights? In this episode, I talk with investor and entrepreneur Steve McBee about Amped, his new effort to boost the industry’s political influence and give it a little swagger — by telling a more compelling story, getting better information to lawmakers, and pulling hundreds of billions of dollars in stranded capital off the sidelines.

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Conventional punditry loves the narrative that woolly-headed progressive standards over-burdened federal climate spending and slowed everything to a crawl. In this episode, I talk with Betony Jones about her time designing labor policies at the DOE and what she learned from interviewing dozens of companies that received federal funding. We explore the difference between bad rules and weak administrative capacity, how the DOE successfully streamlined century-old Davis-Bacon compliance, and why creating high-quality jobs is essential for global competitiveness.

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As affluent homeowners defect to heat pumps, the massive costs of maintaining America’s aging gas pipelines are being concentrated onto a shrinking base of customers who can afford it least. To understand how to prevent an impending utility death spiral, I talk with the Building Decarbonization Coalition’s Kristin George Bagdanov and Panama Bartholomy. We discuss the legal limits of a utility’s “obligation to serve,” the potential for gas companies to transition into geothermal thermal energy networks, and why the US has suddenly become the global leader in heat pump sales.

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Are data centers and electrification going to break the US power grid, or are they the secret to making it cheaper for everyone? In this episode, I talk with Pier LaFarge of Sparkfund about Minnesota’s landmark decision to let Xcel Energy deploy batteries directly into local distribution networks. We look past the politics and map out how a battery-saturated system can socialize the benefits of load growth, ushering in an era of boringly reliable, low-cost energy by 2030.

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Ben Eidelson and Anay Shah run the Stepchange podcast, which recently put out a magisterial four-hour (!) episode on the history of the US electricity grid. I talk with them about some of the colorful characters and stories involved, the big fights and broad lessons learned, and how the history echoes in today’s political and technological struggles.

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Boiling water to make steam for industrial processes consumes an enormous amount energy around the globe, yet it has proven remarkably resistant to electrification. In this episode, I talk with Addison Stark of AtmosZero about why replacing the standard fossil-gas boiler requires an entirely new approach to industrial heat pumps. We discuss the engineering behind his high-temperature system, the challenges of scaling up, and the growing imperative to get free of global LNG markets.

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Most people think that coordinating the behavior of thousands of distributed energy resources requires some kind of third-party middleman, like an aggregator managing a VPP. My guest today, veteran research scientist Bruce Nordman, believes there’s a better way: dynamic, time- and location-specific retail prices, communicated directly to consumer devices, which would cut out the middleman and leave more value with customers.

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Today, coordinating a whole-home retrofit — or even just getting a heat pump — involves confusing research, a parade of contractors, and wildly varying quotes. It’s a broken system that practically pushes people to just buy another gas furnace. In this episode, I’m joined by Zero Homes CEO Grant Gunnison to discuss ways to improve this system for both customers and contractors.

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Historically, investing in energy infrastructure has been the exclusive province of wealthy individuals and large institutions. But that’s changing, and my guest today is part of it. I’m joined by Energea co-founder Mike Silvestrini to discuss how his platform allows retail investors to back international solar projects with buy-in as low as $100. We talk about the unique risks and rewards of building microgrids in emerging markets and why an unapologetic, yield-driven approach might be the best way to do real good in the world.

In this episode, I sit down with financier Tom Steyer to discuss his 2026 run for governor of California. We dig into his pledge to cut the state’s notoriously high electricity bills by 25 percent, how he plans to break the stranglehold of investor-owned utilities through local competition and smarter grid utilization, and the delicate politics of pushing a climate-forward agenda when voters are primarily focused on the immediate cost of living.

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The think tank Ember just released its yearly Global Electricity Review. In this episode, I chat with co-authors Nicolas Fulghum & Kostantsa Rangelova about the biggest stories in the global power sector in 2025. We geek out over the record-breaking scale of solar deployment, the game-changing role of batteries in shifting midday power to the evening, and the tantalizing possibility that India will not follow China’s coal-heavy development path and that global fossil fuel generation has finally plateaued.

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