Energy Gang

Since taking over as administrator of the EPA, Scott Pruitt's meeting calendar has been filled almost exclusively with industry interests.  Now he's opening the door even wider for industry. On Tuesday, the Administrator issued a new decree: any scientist getting funding from the EPA will no longer be allowed to serve on the agency's scientific advisory board. He's replacing scientists with r...

"Don’t let government pick winners and losers." That was Rick Perry’s mantra as Texas governor and a presidential candidate. But it didn’t take him long to abandon it as energy secretary. This week, we’ll revisit the rare, bizarre request from Perry asking federal regulators to restructure electricity markets and prop up struggling coal and nuclear plants. Then, the latest on the post-Hurricane en...

This week, we’re unveiling a new podcast collaboration between Greentech Media and Powerhouse, called "Watt it Takes." Watt It Takes is produced and recorded live at Powerhouse, a cleantech incubator and seed fund in Oakland, CA. Each month, a founder of a top clean energy company shares the personal story behind the company they’ve built. Our first episode features Dick Swanson, founder, and form...

When we first hit the record button four years ago, the energy landscape looked very different. Oil prices were above $90 per barrel. Utilities were only just starting to take distributed resources seriously as grid assets. Coal was still on the upswing globally. There was great uncertainty around a global climate deal. And Donald Trump was still two years away from announcing his presidential cam...

Donald Trump was in New York City this week. We left him some tickets for our live podcast at the box office, but he never showed up. Still, we had a blast taping our latest episode at WNYC's performance space in Manhattan. And this week, we've got that episode in its entirety. Special guest Mark Chambers, director of the mayor's office of sustainability, joined us on stage for a lively discussion...

India has blossomed into one of the most important renewable energy markets in the world. It currently has the fourth-most cumulative wind capacity installed, and will become the third-biggest solar market globally by 2022. The country also has plans to sell only electric vehicles by 2030. With immense growth comes new businesses and economic opportunity -- but also political and economic risk. Th...

We made it. We finished summer without nuclear war or an international catastrophe -- and now we can calm our nerves with pumpkin spice everything. This week, as we close out summer and prepare for a busy fall news cycle, we're checking in on the stories that we think will define the remainder of 2017. Katherine gives us a rundown on the top priorities for Congress. Jigar talks about the shakeout...

While Texans start the painful process of rebuilding their lives after Hurricane Harvey, many are asking: could anything have been done to lessen the impact? In this week's podcast, we're going to discuss the storm through the lens of climate, urban planning and federal policy. All three of those factors created the perfect storm for maximum damage. Marianne Lavelle, a reporter with InsideClimate...

What makes Elon Musk tick? What will the grid look like in 2030? This week, we (re)answer both of those questions. We're featuring a couple of our favorite podcast segments for your summer listening enjoyment. First up, a 2015 Energy Gang interview with Ashlee Vance, a Bloomberg reporter and author of the book, Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Vance gives us an intim...

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (unwittingly) gave an interview this week, saying America is locked in "an economic war with China." Bannon mentioned arcane sections of the 1974 Trade Act to penalize China for alleged steel and aluminum dumping. Could solar be on the list, too? Bannon's comments suggest he's also paying attention to Section 201 of the trade act -- which is the foundation...

What happens when lawmakers and industry craft a large, complicated bill and then rush it through the legislature without reading it? We saw the consequences in South Carolina. That's where two utilities in the state walked away from a nuclear plant they were building – leaving ratepayers to foot the bill and putting thousands of people out of work. It's the result of a piece of legislation quietl...

While venture capitalists swoon over startups devoted to making people click on ads and stare at their phones longer, they’re decidedly less interested in solving more difficult real-world problems -- like transforming the energy sector. Yes, we’ve been talking about this downward trend for years now. And there are still a number of venture firms actively pursuing opportunities in energy decarboni...

Al Gore is back in the climate spotlight with the release of "An Inconvenient Sequel." This week, we’ll revisit his role as the unofficial spokesman for climate action. There’s still an active debate over how effective Gore has been in that role throughout the last decade. Then, Energy Secretary Rick Perry didn’t give away any nuclear secrets in his 22-minute call with Russian phone pranksters. Bu...

After numerous attempts, a desperate plea from the governor, and some pot sweeteners to industry, legislators in California finally passed an extension of cap-and-trade to 2030. It’s a big deal. California is the world’s seventh-largest economy. With Governor Brown vowing to fill in the climate diplomacy vacuum left by Donald Trump, it would have been a huge setback to let cap-and-trade languish....

With America now a climate pariah on the global stage, cities around the country are stepping up their commitments to action. But are they just cheerleading, rather than actually leading? This week, guest Sam Brooks tells the hard truth about why cities are not living up to their bold pronouncements -- not yet, anyway. Brooks is the former director of the District of Columbia's sustainability divi...

This week, we're coming to you live from Grid Edge World Forum. We kick off the show with a look at oil majors. Oil companies have toyed with renewables over the decades with mixed success -- but is it time to take them seriously in the era of electrification? Then, the latest experience with distributed renewables as grid assets. We’re all awaiting the release of a DOE report ordered by Energy Se...

A bitter dispute. A clash. A battle royale. Those are just a few descriptions of a new study countering Mark Jacobson's 2015 report showing that we can source 100 percent of America's energy from wind, solar and water. Jacobson's study is controversial. Celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Bernie Sanders have lauded his work. Other experts have long questioned his assumptions. Jacobson himself has ca...

Utility executives poured into Boston from across the country this week for the Edison Electric Institute’s annual conference. They talked about everything from crazy national politics to rate design to artificial intelligence and the future of workers. We brought our recording gear and tracked down some top names in the industry. In this episode, we hear what's on the minds of utility executives....

We’ve had a week to let the media digest Trump’s climate trolling. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has been all over the airwaves defending the decision to withdraw from Paris, and journalists have been all over the administration for its loose relationship with the facts. We’ll look at how Paris has played out in the press. Then, after killing net metering, Nevada is suddenly back on the table as...

We all just became actors in Donald Trump’s reality TV show. After an elaborate tease over the Paris climate deal in recent weeks, the president finally revealed that he’s walking away from the historic agreement. Soon after Trump’s speech, world leaders issued bold statements: It’s not going to happen. There is no renegotiation process. The deal is the deal. Then local officials spoke up. It didn...

California released a white paper last week documenting the stunning decline of the customer base for investor-owned utilities in the state. Meanwhile, the state is facing more and more curtailments, negative electricity pricing, and, on top of it all, a looming solar eclipse. What can we learn about market design from the nation’s solar leader? Then, getting to terawatt-scale PV. Researchers and...

Now that Tesla has unveiled pricing details for its solar roof, everyone is trying to figure out if it's a good deal. Depending on what your assumptions are -- what kind of roof you're replacing, what kind of market you live in, how much in subsidies you're earning, and what kind of solar system you're competing with -- the value can vary wildly. Some say it's a surprisingly good deal. Others say...

In this show, sponsored by Itron, we discuss the emergence of the smart city. Itron has been at the forefront of developing smart city infrastructure. We speak with Sharelynn Moore, the VP of Marketing at Itron, about how the company is using sensors and software to make the smart city come alive. Learn more about Itron's smart cities work: http://www.itron.com/na/industries/smart-cities See Priva...

Since the day Tesla was founded, executives saw stationary storage as a compliment to the electric car business. That was Martin Eberhard's plan when he co-founded the company and envisioned the Tesla Energy Group. Years later, after launching the Powerwall, CEO Elon Musk said the storage business could soon eclipse automobiles. Today, storage is an integral part of Tesla's package of offerings fo...

To many, France’s ongoing elections are the latest showdown between the liberal world order and a new brand of right-wing populism. That narrative follows a similar path in energy. France’s elections are pitting nuclear versus renewables, closed markets versus open, and disruption versus protectionism. France is going through a quite radical revaluation of its electricity mix. It gets about 75 per...