Shift Key with Robinson Meyer

Wait, is the climate policy landscape … in better shape than it looks? Just over a year ago, President Trump passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It repealed many of the Biden administration’s most aggressive climate policies, including tax credits for solar and wind energy. Although those policies are gone, the emissions cuts they achieved remain largely intact — at least in the power sector, a...

It has been a hard few years for climate tech. But we recently got a bright spot: Earlier this month, Gigascale Capital announced it had raised $250 million to build the physical infrastructure driving decarbonization. That was notable in part because Gigscale’s founder is Mike Schroepfer , Meta’s former chief technology officer, who has gone deep on climate tech since leaving the company in 2022....

When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year, experts projected oil prices would go to $200 a barrel. But then… they didn’t. In fact, while gasoline prices rose in the United States, and Europe and Asia suffered higher costs, the resulting energy crisis wasn’t even as bad as what followed Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Why? China. The country seems to have absorbed the costs of Trum...

One of the most interesting projects in carbon removal is doubling down on the industry. Frontier — a coalition of tech, finance, and fashion firms that buy carbon removal credits to support the crucial technology — has secured another $915 million to power its next round of buying. The artificial intelligence giant Anthropic has also joined the coalition alongside its existing members, including...

Last year, progressives pulled off their biggest state-level win in Georgia in 20 years when voters elected two Democrats to the state’s Public Service Commission, which oversees electricity utilities. It was the first time Democrats had won a state-level office in Georgia since 2006. This year, Democrats have a chance to take an outright majority on the board. What would that mean — and what has...

When New York passed its first major climate law in 2019, climate advocates hailed the work as a milestone: The Empire State vowed to cut its carbon emissions by 40% by 2030, as compared to their 1990 levels, giving it some of the world’s most ambitious subnational climate policy. But last week, Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature moved to rewrite key provisions in that law, weakening...

From Heatmap: Exclusive: Local Opposition to Data Centers Explodes in 2026 America’s tech companies are transforming the electricity system — building entirely new fleets of new solar panels, batteries, and gas turbines — in order to power what are essentially warehouses filled with cutting-edge chips. Almost all of those chips are made by Nvidia. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined...

We live in a time of unheralded environmental victories. Dolphins and whales swim in New York and San Francisco harbors. Lead has been eliminated globally in gasoline for cars and trucks. And Southern California has cleaned up its air. That last one is more important than you might think. On today’s episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA and th...

The Beijing Auto Show is now the world’s largest auto show — and its most important. It’s where China’s automakers show off their new innovations and newest models to a huge audience of domestic consumers and global influencers. As one attendee  observed , there were more EV models in one  room  of the show than there are available for sale in the entire U.S. car market. So what was...

he Strait of Hormuz has been closed for months. Yet oil is trading — at least as of late Tuesday — at under $110 a barrel. Why haven’t the markets responded more to the biggest supply disruption of all time? Is it a credit to President Trump, and does it give us any clues to how future presidents should handle other energy crises? On the latest episode of Shift Key, Rob talks with  Jason Bord...

When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, researchers estimated it would cut U.S. carbon pollution by more than 40% by the mid-2030s. Then President Trump and a GOP majority partially repealed the law, and many of those emissions declines looked doubtful. What will U.S. carbon emissions look like after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? We’re starting to get a sense. On this week’s ep...

If you work around climate or clean energy, you probably know about John Arnold . Although he began his career as a natural gas trader, Arnold has since become one of the country’s most important clean energy investors. He’s the chairman of Grid United, a transmission development firm undertaking some of the country’s most ambitious power line projects, and he is an investor in the advanced geothe...

Here’s some good news: Clean power met  all  electricity demand growth last year for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s according to  a new report on global electricity trends  from Ember, a U.K. think tank that tracks energy data from around the world. The new review suggests that solar and batteries are continuing to remake the global power system — and outcom...

Fervo Energy has become a darling of the clean energy industry by using workers and technology from the oil and gas sector to unlock zero-carbon, all-day geothermal electricity. Last week, Fervo filed to go public, giving us the first deep look at its finances and long-term expansion plans. What’s the bull case, the bear case, and the fine print? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined...

For the past few years, Microsoft has basically carried the carbon removal industry on its shoulders. The software company has purchased 72 million tons of carbon removal, more than 40 times what any other organization has financed, according to third-party sources. Now it’s pulling back. As we reported last week, Microsoft has told suppliers and partners that it’s pausing new purchases. Though th...

The United States and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire in Iran, and energy markets responded with jubilation — at least initially. Every major Wall Street index surged on Wednesday, and U.S. oil prices fell. But the actual situation on the ground is far more ambiguous, huge questions remain about the truce, and the Strait of Hormuz is as closed today as it has been since the beginning of the war. O...

How do utilities decide what they want — and need — to build? It’s one of the most important problems driving the data center and clean energy conversations right now. But it’s hard to get a sense of what constraints and ideas actually drive utility decisionmaking from the inside. Alice Yake is the vice president of GRIDS at Breakthrough Energy, and the former senior vice president of system strat...

Electricity prices rose faster than overall inflation last year. Yet at the local level, it’s been difficult to know why. Is it data centers? Renewables? Aging infrastructure? Or something else more mysterious? Everyone in the political system — including senior Trump officials — wants to blame their favorite energy bugbear. But if we actually want to fix the problem, getting the real answer matte...

Since Democrats swept to statewide victories in Georgia and New Jersey last year by campaigning against high power prices, “electricity affordability” has been the watchword for climate-concerned politicians everywhere. But what can states and cities actually do to bring down power prices? The Federation of American Scientists, through its new Center for Regulatory Ingenuity, has  a new repor...

We are now nearly a month into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The conflict has lasted much longer than some energy experts initially expected — and it has built up an unprecedented crisis that is set to cascade from Asia to the rest of the world. On this episode of Shift Key, Rob chats in Houston with  Karim Fawaz , an oil and refineries expert and a director in the energy and natural resource...

The new draft of China’s five year plan is here, and the news isn’t all good for climate advocates. Although China vows to expand its gigantic “clean energy bases” in the plan, it has actually walked back some of its biggest climate goals since 2021. The new plan also contains a mysterious — and politically convenient — change to one of its most important emissions estimates. On this episode of Sh...

Last week saw what is likely the biggest U.S. electric vehicle launch of the year: the Rivian R2, which will go on sale this spring. It’s absurdly well-timed, given surging gasoline prices. But can it carve out enough of a niche to compete? On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Jesse Jenkins in his new role as occasional guest cohost. Rob and Jesse discuss the Rivian R2, what the Strait o...

When President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in 2022, Democrats imagined he was setting a new policy feedback loop in motion. Voters would see how the law was changing their communities — investing in new factories and solar farms — and then rally to protect it from Republicans. That didn’t happen. Last summer, Republicans in Congress repealed many of the law’s best climate...

We’re watching a new global energy crisis unfold in the wake of America and Israel’s campaign in Iran — and it could rapidly spiral into other industries and commodities. At the same time, there’s been legitimately promising news on iron-air batteries, suggesting the cheap and long-term energy storage technology might be ready for take-off. Rob is joined by Heatmap staff writers Matthew Zeitlin an...

The United States and Israel have launched a devastating new war on Iran. What has happened so far, when could it end, and what could it mean for oil, gas, and the global energy shift? Rob is joined by Gregory Brew, an analyst with the Eurasia Group’s energy, climate, and resources team focused on the geopolitics of oil and gas. He serves as the group’s country analyst for Iran. He’s also an histo...