Should we feel good about the trajectory of clean energy post-Trump?

[Music] Hello greetings, hello and hi everyone this is volts for July 29th, 2026. Should we feel good about the trajectory of clean energy post-Trump? I am your host David Roberts. The inflation reduction act, the Democrats' historic climate bill, was signed into law by Joe Biden on August 16th, 2022. Several people I know devoted their lives and hearts to the fight for that bill at no small personal sacrifice, and I covered its mini twists and turns closely. At least in my world there was enormous elation at its passage, a sense that the US was finally doing something serious about climate change after decades of lassitude, that all the years of frustrating work and heartbreak had not been in vain. Less than three years later on July 4th, 2025, Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, OBBBA, which seemed to crush the IRA entirely. By then, Trump's EPA had already reversed many of Biden's key climate-related regulations, like the Mercury and Air Toxic standards, and more of those would fall in 2026, like the tailpipe standards. All of this violent destruction of their life's work left many climate advocates in a funk, from which they have not entirely recovered. But a new report that has gotten a lot of attention lately says to turn those frowns upside down. Glass half full, building a decarbonized US power sector, is a research commentary out of MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, written by Lily Burmell. She's currently a visiting fellow at Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy. Before that, she worked under previous Vultz guest, Brian Deese, at MIT, and before that worked on John Kerry's State Department Climate Team. The report uses modeling from energy innovation to compare what would have happened in the electricity sector under the IRA, versus what did happen under the OBBBA. Its basic argument is that things worked out better than many people predicted, that many of the clean energy and emissions gains are on track to be achieved, regardless. And further, that there is reason to believe that the incentives Republicans took from renewable energy are not what it most needs to continue growing in present circumstances. Within that argument is a great deal of nuance and some very interesting details. So I'm very excited to have Lily with me today to dig in. So let's do that. All right, with no further ado, Lily Burmell, welcome to Vultz. Thank you so much for coming. Hi, David. It's so great to be here. Long time listener. So thanks for all that you've taught the climate community so far. Thank you. Thank you. Well, let's start. Before we get into the report, just tell me what put this bug in your ear. Why did you do this? What made you want to do this analysis in the first place? What question were you trying to answer? Sure. I think I resonate a little bit with what you said about people who feel like they've dedicated their life to climate change. I was not one of those amazing thought leaders who led to the creation of the IRA, but rather have just been deeply motivated by climate and emissions reductions throughout my career and my life. And so as I think with almost everyone in our community, the 2024 election, but really 2025 was a distressing time. There was a lot of debate, a lot of change in policy and a lot of real, you know, attack on clean energy. And so not only were there the emotional ups and downs throughout the negotiation process that led to the one big beautiful bill act, but I felt a little bit confused after the fact in just trying to grapple with the question of how bad is this really going to be. And therefore, you know, once you, one day have clarity on that question, what do you do about it? And how do you move beyond this moment? So for me, that was the question that I sought out to answer really looking at the world we just left, Biden Policy, really represented by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Power Plant Regulations. And comparing that to what we now inherited, represented by the one big beautiful bill act, I'll call it OB-3, without those regulations in place. Oh, is OB-3 the term good? I've been grappling around for some non-awkward way to refer to that bill. I'm going to adopt that. I say OB-3, I've heard O3BA, O triple BA. I don't like any of the names, but I do whatever rolls off the time. Yeah, that's exactly. And so the question that I was asking was of the clean energy future that the old policy promised in the power sector specifically, how much will still show up over the coming decade? And that decade's important because that's won the near term impact, but then also where the next policy decisions will have the ability to influence and change. And so what I found is that for clean capacity, 74% will still show up on the grid, and emissions reductions in the power sector, 67% of those will still occur on average over the coming decade. Yeah, okay, so this, I want to be clear up front about what's in the model and what isn't. So right now we're going to talk about what's in the model, and then once we sort of discuss those results a little bit, then we're going to talk about some things that didn't make it in and how they might influence our thinking about all this. So just to be clear, the model compared not just the IRA, but the IRA plus Biden's key climate regulations. And I'm wondering like that included the tailpipe regulations. Also the mercury regulations. Most of the big ones, yes. Yep, you're right. So the two models include the presence or lack thereof of the regulations and the regulations in scope for this report are the power plant ones. So that's the mercury and air toxic standards, the section 111 power plant rules and the effluent limitations guidelines. Right. Versus a world with the O triple B and none of those regulations. Exactly. Since they all got newt. I mean, you said this, I said this, but just to underline it, this is just about the electricity sector, not other things outside the electricity sector, which we might touch on in a minute. Exactly. Yep. Power sector only laws plus regulations or lack thereof. Right. So 74% of the clean capacity, meaning clean energy built and 71% of the clean energy generation from the IRA. Tragictery still show up in the O triple B trajectory. Yes. Yep. And then what happened to about emissions? Right. So emissions in the power sector, the math is quite simple. It literally takes the current policy environment divided by the prior policy environment and looks at it as a percent. And so I see that 67% of the emissions reductions will still occur on average over the coming decade. And the analysis stives into what technologies are preserved out what share. And it's interesting to see that the fossil fuel plant is really sticky. And to me, a lot of the emissions increase that happens today is because of the retention of coal without those regulations. Right. So there are three buckets you compare. There's clean electricity. Yeah. There's fossil electricity and then there's the emissions. Clean electricity we just covered on 74% 71%. Emissions reductions, 67% were preserved. And then on the fossil electricity score, it is interesting to talk a little bit about what happened there. Sure. And I think this is almost prosperous, most surprised in doing the analysis. I saw that the capacity of the fossil fleets did not really change much between scenarios. Meaning not a lot more built. Right. So the capacity in the OB-3 scenario is 4% higher than the prior trajectory. But the composition changes. Right. So you have more coal and less gas. So it's more emissions intensive per unit. Right. 19% more emissions. So then the 19% comes from the generation. Sorry. More fossil generation. Right. Then. And so what that speaks to is, you know, fossil power, fossil fuels are dispatchable and can ramp up or down. And so even though the capacity is more or less flat, it will run for more hours of the day to fill in for the less clean energy that's built. Right. And briefly, let's pick apart the clean electricity bucket because the composition there is really interesting. So solar and batteries retain 80 something like 80% around 80% of their capacity and generation. Yep. And wind is down around 50% or a little bit below 50%. So the average there of 70, whatever percent sort of hides the fact that solar and batteries survive quite well and wind gets hurt quite badly. So can you explain why what in your estimation explains that sort of disjunct there. Why do solar and batteries prove so resilient and when gets hurt so badly? - Sure, yep. So that 74% is an average and it represents the aggregate clean number. So in it, you can decompose it to all of those different numbers basically weighted by the technology. So solar, interestingly, you can break it down between utility scale and distributed. And distributed is far, far more resilient about 95% of its capacity is preserved. And I attribute that to thinking about the strength of net metering and other state level policies that enable its deployment. And if we're seeing rising prices in the utility scale sector that will incentivize folks to keep building on the distributed side. For solar and batteries, I think those are seeing great cost declines and the battery still retained its tax credit. So it's able to benefit from that as well. On the wind side, that, again, you can break out into onshore and offshore. Offshore is so tiny of a pipeline that the model shows that it will probably all get built because it's so small. So that's 100% preserved for offshore. But onshore is the biggest casualty of everything it dips below that metaphorical, glass half full threshold. And we only see 47% of its capacity preserved. And I attribute that to, it's a little bit like wind was already struggling. It was already down. And yanking the tax credit was kind of beating it on its way down. A lot of its struggles are its extremely transmission constrained. It's only able to be built and utilized in a specific region. It doesn't see the same cost declines that we're seeing because of innovation on the solar and battery side. And it's just like more capex heavy. It's a hard technology to manage. And that-- so it was already suffering. And now it's taken a beating. Right. It's basically a measurement of how credit-- how much these technologies depended on the credits on the tax credits. Because that's the main thing. Tax credits go away. Which ones were most depended on it? Turns out wind really needed them, solar and batteries, somewhat less. Yeah. I would say, yeah. The difference shows the impact of the credits. And then what remains shows the market momentum behind it. Right. And so one of my questions I had about all this is, it seems like there's been a real effort to spin this report as a positive in the most positive way possible. So like, for instance, you talk about this 2.5-year time lag for solar and batteries. First, just say what you mean by that. Sure. I think, yeah. First thing I'll say is, the report represents a really specific framing. And the result is very positive. So I wouldn't say that it's spin for one. But number two on the 2.5-year lag, what I did there was really wanting to figure out how far behind the current trajectory is compared to what the IRA would have put forward. So I was trying to think of creative ways to do it. And I thought of this concept of what I coined a lag analysis. And basically, what that does is it looks at a given year-- so say, 2031-- and it looks at how many gigawatts of energy will be deployed. So for solar, the energy innovation model shows about 333 gigawatts of solar will be deployed. At what point, how many years later will OB3 reach that time period? And it's only 2.5 years later. And so for me, again, when I was doing this research, that was much smaller than I thought. And so that doesn't even equal 2.5 years' worth of capacity or deployment loss, because it's still being deployed at about 75% of that high level. It's just looking at the total levels of deployment. And at what point in time will you reach that milestone? Yeah, well, this gets a little bit at what I mean, which is that 2.5 year number is the per year average over the 10 years. But if you look, like the report says, by 2035, we've lost a cumulative 44 deployment years on clean capacity in 56 deployment years on generation. And if you look at wind, even the per year average on wind is 11.5 years deployment, all of which sounds to me bad. What I mean, another way of looking at this is we got 30% less of the clean energy that we would have gotten in 25% or even more 33% less of the emissions losses. And that seems bad to me. They'll seem big numbers to me. I guess-- Yeah. I mean, you're right. It's bad. Any energy loss is bad. And the report does not hide that in any way. Page one, it talks about how Trump's policies are leading to less clean energy, less investment, fewer jobs, cancel projects, all the like. And so on the lag-- that was my honesty that in rigor in the analysis that those lags compound and they add up every single year. Yeah, yeah. And they get bigger and bigger over time, as the thing was the bigger. And just as you asked earlier about the 74% number, how-- why is that rosy when wind sucks? It's the same thing on this side. Wind is clearly the laggard and the down weight in all of these numbers. And then at the individual technology level, solar and battery sphere far, far better than wind. Yeah. And it's also worth saying, I think, that when you-- there's 2.8 gigatons of CO2 is the difference between these two cumulative 10-year difference between these two scenarios. And that's also a lot. And unlike clean energy progress, you can't-- you know, I'm not telling you anything. You can't get that back. It's a cumulative measure how much is in the atmosphere. So all of which is this is just me arguing for my natural pessimism. Are you for the glass half empty perspective? Like, it just seems to me like, even your analysis shows. And as you say, it doesn't hide it. It says it right in the analysis. These are big hits, basically. Even if not as bad as some people might have thought, or veered, they are big. Yeah, I'm glad you pointed out that 2.8 gigaton number. That's the amount of emissions that the current policy scenario will see over a 10-year time period. And actually, right before this, I did the math. That's equal to about 2, like, 2024-sized worth of power sector emissions. So that's just in the power sector. And again, I focus on that 10-year window. Because to me, it highlights that urgency. Of like, this is real. These losses are real. It's tangible. You can calculate it or estimate it. And it's also the window that policy can do something about it. Like, this is not 2.8 gigatons that automatically happen the moment they signs the piece of paper for OB-3. This is something that right now, permitting reform negotiations can address. And that next Congress will have the opportunity to address and the next administration will as well. Right. None of these are locked in. Yeah, we should say that. None of these numbers are locked in. They're out to 2035. So we could change this reality. Exactly. And I think one more thing I'll say about the framing is that any person in the climate community knew that the IRA was not enough to get us 10-year by 2050. And it put us within a stone's throw distance of it, which was really exciting and infigorating. And so when you know that what is this glass that we're measuring, it's the current compared to the prior, what we have now versus what we thought we had and what made us really excited. And the glass is pretty full, more full than we thought. Of course, there are so much more to do. We don't just want to fill up the glass. We want to do way better than that. And again, I think that's pretty clear in the report because a lot of it's dedicated to talking about solutions and how to move forward. Yeah. And I meant to-- as is before, actually-- why not a third scenario that's neither IRA nor OBBA. In other words, I don't think anybody thought that none of this clean energy build out would have happened absent the IRA. So I don't even know. It's even possible to estimate that kind of-- it'd be a lot of guesswork, I guess. But did you think about trying to include that scenario? Oh, yeah. I totally did. And I'll say that again, this is in the throes of last year. But I've heard this recently from some high level former Biden DOE officials, like a real concern that clean energy was kneecapped. And so I think, yeah, it would be silly to think it's all gone. But I think there is a line of thinking that thinks the majority of things were lost. And so again, why took that specific framing? I asked energy innovation, who that team is amazing. They were really kind and giving me their modeling, their data. So it's all their work. And I just did some extra math on top of it. But I asked them about that pre-2021 scenario, because of course, that's the other counterfactual. And one thing that they told me is that it was built with different demand assumptions. So I can't apples to apples compare. That's mathematically illegal. But you can reason through what's the difference between Trump one policy and Trump two policy on paper. And Trump one policy also had zero regulations. Trump one policy also had wind and solar tax credits phasing down. And that's the same in Trump two. Trump two also has the clean firm tax credits and more LPO funding, loan programs office and more. And so you can imagine that on paper, they're a little bit similar, but there is better policy this time around. And then we also have higher demand, which is being a demand poll and an incentive to deploy as much energy as possible. We're going to get to that. So I guess you could say Trump two policy better on clean energy than Trump won policy. for the simple reason that - Low bar. - For the simple reason the Democrats passed a bunch and they were not able to get rid of all of it, basically so. Yeah, as you said, and as Jiger Shah, as previous, I guess, Jiger Shah said, if we just went from Trump one to the O triple B, it would look pretty good. It would look like a pretty strong energy boom. - Yep, and that comment, I mean, I remember him saying that in the fall and that's a little bit what Perkts might ears up to this originally because he was saying, right, if we only had OB-3, we'd be shouting from the rooftops and overjoyed, and Jesse Jenkins too, was like the Republicans on a trifecta, party line vote just agreed to create investments and spend money on zero carbon technology for a decade. And that's incredible, that's great. - Just not wind and solar. They really just hate wind and solar, which I think is just gets to sort of the kind of symbolic culture war aspect of a lot of business. - Yeah, because that's the official lamb. - They just wanted to own the lives. They just took enough of it to chunk out of it to own the lives, but they didn't seem that concerned about the policy per se. Okay, so let's then talk about a variety of things that for various reasons could not make it into these model comparisons, 'cause they, like some of them, they weigh in different directions, these things that got left out, they're interesting to walk through, I think. So I think the first thing to say, and this gets back to my glass F-empty insistence, which is that it left out all the non-electricity sectors, which is left out the EVs, which took the biggest hit, I think, probably like policy wise were hurt worst. A lot of the clean and manufacturing stuff got hit. A lot of the LPO stuff, the loan programs office stuff, the grants, loans, all that stuff. - Yeah, well on that real fast, I mean, the report's only about the power sector. So, of course it doesn't include EVs. - I just say the news outside of the electricity sector is grimmer than the news within it, I guess. - Yes, and I think it is actually really valuable, my C-Jep colleague Noah Kaufman has a really great point about how, when you take such a narrow view, like a strength of the Biden industrial policy for climate was that it was a whole of economy, was that the manufacturing tax credit spoke to the demand tax credits, spoke to the transition funding for fossil fuel communities. And so, when you look at one part. - All of which spoke also, as he said, to the international community and the international dynamic, just the signal to the international community, that the US had its shit together was in and of itself an important thing. - Right, and so I mean, part of that, right, again on this beat, like I think it's helpful to not then wonder what happened or prognosticate or theorize about the future based on vibes. It helps to have the data to point us in the right direction. - Yeah, okay, so another thing, this that you couldn't get in the report necessarily is that the Trump administration has not just removed the tax credits from wind and solar. They're also very specifically going after wind and solar permits in a variety of ways. They've sort of launched this, you know, it's like the negative, it's like the mirror image. It's like a whole of government effort against wind and solar. - It's creative. - Yeah, how big, it's hard to model for one thing because it's just hard to know like what exactly is going on and how much of it's gonna stick. But like what's your sort of assessment of how big of a piece of the pie, how much worse would that make the O-Tribble Be scenario look if you could have included it, I guess? - Yeah, I think first just to start with, you know, why could it not fit in the model? This again, it was an exercise that reminded me that a model is just a camera. It just captures a moment in time of what we think might happen. It's not a thermometer and it's not a live weather forecast. So that aside, plus it's just like simply hard to figure out like how deep and how intense and how far reaching are the Trump administration's efforts on restricting renewables. - And how are the legal cases gonna settle out? - And the investment environment and like, I think about the July 2025 memo from the Department of the Interior right after the law was signed where they said, you know, any Wyndon Solar Project that wants to get permitted on public land has to get signed by the secretary. Where they 69 line item list of things that they had to check off, like, - Yes. - A bridges. And now that's been vacated by a judge, it no longer has legal standing, it's not in place. And, but you know, there's stills an impact at that last year. - But does that matter? Are they gonna follow the law that the judge says? Who knows? He's like, who knows? You know, the fact that a judge ruled on it doesn't even settle the question anymore with this administration. - I think, yeah, I mean, the whole constitutional law thing is a whole other question we needed to first of our lawyers about. But I've been at least comforted and yes, on a delay, speaking of a lie. I've been comforted that the judges have come in and tried to stop actions that are overbearing far reaching or outrate illegal, ranging from impoundment to the stock work orders to the wind projects where all five instances, a judge came in and said, you can't do that. Yeah. - Right, speaking of offshore wind, you know, the model had all that getting built, but they are doing their best to scuttle those things or buy off those leases or whatever. - Yeah, and so to me, those kind of railing forces does do matter, but of course, like, it's hard to measure how chilled is an investment environment and what the factors that have. I think two things that have helped me think about this that like the near term pipeline is very robust. Like yes, because of the safe harboring of the tax credits, they're available, projects are able to benefit from them if you qualify, you know, by all these really technical standards through 2030, and that matters. And so I want to point out that the data that I use is pretty validated by the Rodeum Group by Jesse Jenkins' repeat lab. And so Rodeum Group finds that, you know, deployment through 2030 is very strong in robust because of that safe harboring. - Right. - And the second way that I've liked thinking about it is Alfred Johnson, who's CEO of Crocs Climate, who does the tax equity, you know, financing platform. He calls the grid something like Light Years, where what we see today, what could's deployed this year, was because of construction and permitting decisions made years ago. - Right, right, right, right. So all this stuff Trump is doing now is, theoretically we'll show up five, 10 years from now, right? - Yeah, so it's a bull for right now, but then it's a bear for like Trump will have a lingering effect, but on like discreet concrete projects. - Yeah. So we'll just say that Trump's executive branch campaign has some nebulous negative effect on this scenario that is difficult to measure, but that will also compound over time. - Yeah. - The other thing that was hard to get in is just this extraordinary surge in demand. Talk about that, talk about why, what the sort of demand numbers were in the model versus what is showing up in real life. - Sure. And can I just add one more thing on the Trump executive piece, which is, I think it's also just helpful to remember that Trump's actions that directly affect projects on federal land is relatively small and distinct from just like the general investment environment in our country. Because 99% of wind is built on private land, and 80 to 90% of solar is built on private land as well. And so while there's certainly like you need a FAA approval for every single wind project that gets built, so wind's kind of screwed. - Yes, now they're doing national security 'cause of the broans or something. - And the whales, I don't know. - Yeah. - They're trying to go after the private land stuff, but I think they have much less, they have much less. - Yeah, so that's like one of those weird comforting things is like, oh, they sound so scary, but they can only go so far, but then at the same time, like it's bad, like why isn't wind and solar being built on federal land, like that's a whole other conversation, you know? So anyways, that's on that. Okay, your question on demand. So I intentionally conducted the analysis, actually, the analysis had to be conducted using two scenarios with the exact same assumptions across the board. As time has gone on, you know, since the IRA's been passed in every single year, since, demand in our projections for it have just skyrocketed. And of course, with that, the uncertainty about it. And so I think energy innovation came out this month, actually, with some of their updated OB3 scenario with the higher demand. And I purposely kept my analysis to ratios in percents, just because the gigawatts, the specific numbers themselves, were less important. So essentially, the analysis is robust and correct because it's kept within that frame and I didn't push it beyond what it wasn't meant to do. - Right, the demand surge would have affected both scenarios. - Exactly. - Equally. So it wouldn't have affected the ratio between them necessarily. But I think maybe we could say that it would have meant more fossil generation for both scenarios, all things considered. - Yeah, I think what we see with more demand means more needs to get built. And then there's, I think a helpful discussion in the report that talks about how is that more demand being met in the real world? And we are seeing that with behind the meter. both gas and clean, you know, the work that Google's doing with their clean energy parks. But really, to me, what it crystallizes is that speed to power has a price that companies are willing to pay. Yes, this is so important about models. These models kind of run on cost optimization. They're kind of cost optimization exercises. But the real world is not that. Yeah, well, the real world, these hyper-scale is care about speed more than optimize cost necessarily. And speed. Yeah, this was actually my next thing that didn't get, including the else's for just cause it couldn't be, which is the behind the meter stuff, which is to my dismay, mostly right now, gas. Some clean, but mostly gas. Seems like a big surge of buying the meter gas happening. Yep. And I'm a big fan of Michael Thomas's work at Clean View and his newsletter distilled where he has this amazing project database that's looking at behind the meter gas announcements, which ones actually have commitments from manufacturers for turbines, only two thirds do. And then which ones are actually getting built and which ones are delayed or canceled. So even though there's like, you know, a big scary number of how much behind the meter gas has been built, I think it's 90 gigawatts, only two thirds of that might actually have turbines. And then only two gigawatts have actually been built so far. Yeah, I'm sort of of the of the jigger show school on this question, which is that I think those projections are, there's a large element of fantasy to that. I think once people start actually building those, they're going to find out that building your own energy grid and operating it is a lot harder than it looks on paper. It's a lot harder than your little model that you came up with on Claude and that there's a lot of pieces to that puzzle. I think just a lot of that, a lot less of that is going to get built and it's projected. But it would nonetheless add to the fossil side of these projections. You're right. And off-grid stuff can't compete and can't compete with clean. So we of course want to direct all energy to get added to the grid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another thing that does a show up in the projections is these nuclear restarts. And I would say maybe I would broaden that to like the model doesn't show much clean firm getting built. But there's some reason to believe that there's going to be more clean firm than might show up from that number. And that includes nuclear restarts and maybe some geothermal that's already under a contract. So talk a little bit about that and how you think that might have affected the outcomes. Sure. And first on the why I should point out that a model is also built on other data sources. And so energy innovation is able to track behind the meter and is able to track clean firm. But because their inputs don't yet capture it, right? Then as a result, their output doesn't capture it. So I could imagine in a couple iterations of their model all behind the meter stuff will be there. On clean firm specifically as we discussed. Right now they have a series of assumptions that to be frank, you know, I don't know what they are. They set them. It's their model. But that are about costs and performance. And you know, they're pretty stringent. And as a result, they don't see a lot of clean firm be it nuclear, geothermal, hydro, you know, fusion, like other stuff, get built in the next decade. But per the conversation about hyper-scalers having deep pockets for speed to power. That stuff is happening in changes than the economics of these projects. So we have on the nuclear side, we have three projects that are getting restarted that will add gigawatts of capacity within a couple of years. The Palisade's project, Crane, Duane Arnold. And that's within the decade horizon of the model of the projection. Right. So then even within like two or three years, it's pretty near term. So that would help on both the clean energy generation side, the clean energy capacity side. And presumably on the emissions. Exactly. Side because you're not going to need as much coal running. Yep. If you've got nuclear, if you've got more nuclear, right? Yep. So that's one tangible thing. The second tangible, you know, bonus plus up on all those categories is nuclear extensions. I think a lot of these projects are running for 60 years and we're seeing them revise their contracts to run for 80 years. So that's good news. And then on geothermal side, I often point to Google's framework that they have with Fervor Energy to deliver several gigawatts and three gigawatts of capacity through 2033. So those are all tangible things. And then the expectation that as commercialization timelines get pulled forward, more will precipitate as well. Right. So the behind the meter gas thing might make the glass look a little emptier. The nuclear restart thing might make the glass look a little fuller. There's a lot of nuance there in actual current events that are difficult to capture in the model. Yep. And the report, you know, hopefully lays that all out. So it's clear it thinks through this, you know, on net, I still think it will run glass half full given, you know, it is near that three quarters mark, but you know, time will tell, which is what is exciting. Yeah. Yeah. There are some also medium term rather than short term kind of medium term factors that are difficult to capture in the model like how much clean firm will get commercialized, whether costs on the clean energy side will continue to decline faster than projected, which they seem to do. Yeah, every time. Every time. My favorite graph of all time is like the solar expectation line. Yes. Every single line is more steeper and steeper and beats that expectations every time and so great. Yes. Very, very familiar with that graph and makes me wonder why modelers, you know, keep doing it, but, but you know, maybe medium term we can rely on that. There's intangible, but a real thing is then this has proven true in the past too. I think when the clean energy industry goes through a contraction like this or a blow like this, they kind of tighten up. You know, they kind of like improve, they get more efficient, they get more resilient and maybe come out of the other side of that a little better off in terms of just like having their stuff in order a little better. Yeah. I don't know how you'd measure that. Yeah, I was going to say I, I was doing some presentations on this work in the spring and had a longer section in my presentation about this that I slimmed down for the report because I'd rather an economist give me some pretty explicit definitions of booms and busts and whatnot. But my sense is that in these capital intensive and cyclical sectors, buss are bound to happen at some point. And the boom is always bigger than the last time. And so one perspective that I mean, I remind myself is that 2021 was such like a euphoric frothy moment in the clean energy market. Like peak woke, zero interest rate, so much excitement, like so much investment ready to go into this sector. And then all of a sudden, like inflation surge interest rates got super high and stayed high for a long time. And so I think expectations versus reality, there was already a tiny mismatch there. And then when you had Trump come in, like then you have a series of politically induced headwinds, which like are yucky and sticky and gross. And that just like makes the bust part feel so much worse. But like at some point, a bust was bound to happen. So, you know, at some point, the boom is going to happen and it will surely be better than the last one. Yeah. And one final medium term thing, this difficult to quantify is, there's some reason to think that this extraordinary demand growth could help clean energy, could help boost the ratio of clean energy. Talk a little bit about that maybe that dynamic. Sure. I think we're seeing the fastest energy growth since World War Two. And this is a really unique moment where all hands on deck, we need as much energy as fast as possible, as cheaply as possible, getting added to the grid. Clean energy right now, the latest Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory numbers from their 2026 Q to report is that 90% of what gets added to the grid last year was clean. And so if we have more poll on that demand, like more need for those additions, that will, that is such a strong incentive for clean to continue happening. And so I think the boom from data centers and from AI, which is the near term stuff that we're seeing and is all that's being talked about is what's happening right now and causing that demand poll. But what's really helpful to think about is that the demand from electrification, clean electrification, such an important point. Yeah, from EVs, from heat pumps, from buildings, from all the forms of decarb and electrification, that will end up being just as big if not bigger than the demand poll from data centers right now. And so like thank God that right now, the demand growth that we are seeing is from customers with massive pockets to watch, okay? And are willing to invest in our grid. Like literally thank God. And we can do so much better and like really utilize this moment because when the next wave of demand comes, we'll be in a better place and we'll have grown such that we can run through first base. Yeah, yeah, this is, this point I make on the pod over and over again. Thank you for making it again. Whatever you think about data centers, there's a giant wave of electrification coming in behind it. We need lots more electricity. We need lots more grid. We need to think about this whole thing a lot more. Just don't get obsessed about AI to the point of forgetting that this is all matters regardless. - Yeah, and I think that's something also just about like the concepts of policing the low growth, like good versus bad low growth. One could think that the low growth that's coming later is good, it's from decar purposes electrification, but it's gonna happen regardless. And so let's welcome it and let's prepare our grades to be stronger and bigger and build more. That's a great challenge. - Yeah, I think what maybe not everybody, but I'm sure you and I agree on is the scenario we want eventually is for big enough and robust enough and abundant enough grid that we can use all the energy we want. I know a lot of my maybe fellows, the environmental movement don't necessarily share that perspective, but that's certainly perspective I take. - I think that's the American dream right there. We want enough energy to power economic growth and prosperity and do it in a decarbable way. Beautiful. - Yeah, and like even aside from industry and transportation and heating and cooling, maybe we want to like decalinate the oceans, maybe we want to like rewild the deserts, maybe we want to send Elon Musk to Mars, you know? Like all these things, who knows? If we have an abundant power system, I'm sure we find lots of pro human ways to use that power if we got a bunch of it, you know, that we don't even know about now. Anyway. - Yeah, one more plug I'll put is the report kind of has that through line of building is the answer. Like we need to build our way through to decarbonization to the end state. And when you think about, and sorry if I'm jumping ahead a bit, but if you think about two goals of like we need to build more clean and fill that glass all the way up and spill it over, like you need to build more wind and solar and batteries. And if you want to decarbonize and get rid of fossil fuel emissions, you need to build clean firm. And like the only solution is build, build, build. - Yeah, we're gonna get into that much more in a second. But what, the one final thing which might be an X factor for the results of these models in the next 10 years is transmission and interconnection. Right now you say, and I think there's good reason to say this, you know, Jesse Jenkins modeling shows this, comments since I think tells this that there's some reason to think that even the IRA projection would not actually come true, because for it to come true, you have to build, you have to make permitting easier, right? You can't block it all, and you gotta build a bunch of transmission to make room for it on the grid. So there's some reason to think that both scenarios should be a little bit more glass-half empty, given current transmission and interconnection restraints, right? But the flip side is, should we get our, should together and reform those, both scenarios could be higher, right? That the glass could be much fuller if we actually got our stuff together. So just maybe like, spell that out a little bit, the sort of like the ceiling as you call it for current clean energy deployment. - Yep, going, writing this report made me really appreciate like the literal ceiling that exists and how much energy can get added of all types at any given point, and how fast it can be. And that's due to this like massive gauntlets and all the barriers that it, how long it takes to get permits and find a site and connect to the grid and construct a project. And the model itself actually does include this in its construct. It has a literal cap on how much energy can get added. So the model reflects that, and yes, if you lift the cap, the results would be a lot better. And so Jesse was someone who right after the IRA was passed, tried to put a number on how bad it is. And he found that 80% of the 2030 emissions reductions from the IRA would be totally lost if we could not build transmission any faster. And the sad reality is how we'd been building it slower ever since that report came out. - God. - And then John Bistlin, who's another modeler, he put out this great paper in nature with a lot of folks, a lot of different groups and they compared every single IRA model. And one of the things I found most interesting about that report was that later assessments of the impact of the IRA had dimmer and dimmer outlooks because people began to appreciate this concept of the ceiling and the transmission constraints a lot more. - Yes, but those are not technical risks. - Those are political and regulatory constraints that theoretically policy could ease theoretically. - Yes. - Okay, so maybe this is difficult to answer, but just like taking into account all the things that were not really modelable, that were sort of exogenous to the model or that are all the other factors. Do you think all those other factors increase or decrease your net, the net level of the class as long as we're using that metaphor? - Sure. Yeah, I mean, in the report, I take the time to really spell it out across different time horizons, dig into both the good and the bad news. And I come out still glass half full. I think the demand pull that we are seeing is really massive and really important to delivering clean energy. It comes with it, the hyperscaler's deep pockets to pay. It comes with it in urgency to build more and faster. And then right, there's literal gigawatts and gigawatts that I enumerate in the reports of what will actually get added in the coming years that are plus. And I'm hoping that that will offset the behind the meter gas that we're seeing. So I still think it's glass half full. - All right, let's move on to a couple of things that I kind of want to argue with you about, even though I agree with you. (laughing) I'm gonna fix any sense. I find myself in this position more and more often, could just be that I'm getting cranky and old. But first is, you argue that Democrats should get their act together and push for permitting reform and push for more transmission to lift this ceiling. Right? I totally agree with that. They should do that. But in the process of making that argument, you argue against pushing to extend the tax credits. And before I say anything about that, why don't you just say what's your political economy thinking behind that? - Hey there, everybody. Don't worry. I'm not gonna tell you about a new mattress or push a credit card on you. This isn't an ad. There are no ads on volts. It is supported entirely by listeners like you. If you'll indulge me for a second, I'd like to ask for your support. I started volts because we're all surrounded by depressing news about climate change and misinformation about clean energy. And it's never been more important to share the stories of the real people on the ground doing the real work of transition and all the ingenuity, encourage, and public spirit they are bringing to it. People are hungry to hear these stories to learn from and find inspiration in them. I've heard from people who changed majors or careers after hearing episodes of volts. People using it in classrooms and community groups, even state legislators who have passed bills inspired by specific episodes. Sharing these stories matters. It makes a difference. If you have found value in it and want to help me continue doing it, I hope you will join the community of paid subscribers at volts.wTF. It's about the cost of a cup of coffee a month. If you don't like subscriptions, you can make a one-time contribution. Leave a review on Apple or Spotify or just tell a friend about volts. I am grateful for any and all support. If you're already a paid subscriber, thank you. And now, back to the show. - I think, yeah, this is a fun discussion and I'm glad we're gonna dive into it. - I think first, an important clarification is that the report does not view any policy scenario as mutually exclusive. If you do one, you can't do the other. Rather, it's an attempt to shine light on the different policy levers to figure out what they are, how they work, how effective are they really. - We're trying to prioritize, I think, which is God's work. Like I think Democrats don't always do that. - Yeah, I think right now's the time to think about the strengths and the weaknesses of these policies, which encourages conversation about, can you design it better? What's most effective? What is worth spending our money on? Because there will come a point in a few years where the leadership in Congress will meet with the 50th Senator once again, and they will say, how much are we spending, where and why? Let's have some good conversation now, I think it's true. But it's of course not taking things off the table or any of that. And so in the category of like how do you build more clean? The clean stuff that's most at hand right now is that wind, solar, and batteries. Because that's what's getting constructed the most. And so the two core levers are permitting reform at the federal level. The two core levers at the federal level are permitting reform, and so the comprehensive bipartisan compromise and the tax credit set the Republicans put on the chopping block. And so the political economy argument you started there is both thinking about like what is more durable, and how much does it cost? And like, you know, how triggering is it, I suppose. And so on the permitting reform, like it can only get achieved through bipartisan compromise. And it costs zero dollars. And so permitting reform I've loved thinking about it recently is like free money. Like it costs no physical space. And then it will lower the cost of projects because they will not be delayed as often or canceled. And it will take less time to build. And so like that's free money in some ways that we can pick up. Versus the wind and solar tax credits have, you know, a sizable bill that comes with it. They've existed for almost 50 years since its inception and always extended on a bipartisan basis bipartisan support, which is really cool. And then as we discussed, it was like the sacrificial lamb for the Republicans right now. And so to me, like it's not just taking that fact in isolation, it's also recognizing that like. Right, like there's so much antithetia against renewables that is far predated Trump, but this was like another arrow in their sheath that was like, you know, wind and solar get free handouts from daddy Biden. And like Democrats are out here saying that clean is the cheapest thing on earth yet they need to be subsidized. Like they're pointing out the incoherent politics of it all. And you have Republicans who will acknowledge that they are against transmission because of the slush fund that being able to build more wood on lock if you have those tax credits in place. And so recognizing that but then in conjunction with data that shows like wow, these technologies are mature like there's 50 years of US policy and then decades of policy in China and Germany that have driven down the cost. Like we've done such a good job as a planet and as a country supporting these two technologies that Trump can try to recap it and can't. And like that is so promising to me of their viability that it's not just some like emissions reducing target that like some people like that it is something that overwhelmingly is getting added to the grid even when there is no policy supporting it to do so. And so in that way it makes me think and this is at a really high level and we can jump into the weeds on it like oh like they do last perhaps that we thought they did a few years ago and there's other first order policies that might make a bigger impact. And there's still like other things we need to invest in and spend our money on so in terms of prioritization like maybe other things are worth prioritizing the next time around. Right I guess the only thing and this is this is just one of my hobby horses check is the only thing that bugs me is this notion which. I'm not selling from yours certainly not from there so much in this report but I hear this a lot in energy circles which is well Republicans have polarized this and if we do it they'll just undo it next time they take power so it's not worth doing and I just find that kind of sort of like DC brain so poisonous because you are undercover of being savvy and realistic. Just more or less explicitly allowing your political opponents to define the space of what's permissible and what's allowable and like we can't really take that literally right because like if we restore abortion rights they'll just try to undo those next time if we you know voting rights like name it like they have shown that they want to undo most of modernity are we just going to say that like oh well if we try to restore. They're just going to undo it next time we they take power so it's not resilient or not durable so we got to give up on that like it can't be that we're formally allowing them to define. The space of the possible right you see what I'm saying there I do and I and I like your abortion example and frankly this is something that I think about often in our country is very burdened let's say by the political pendulum and we will have. My guess is you know a series of one term administrations back to back to back going forward and so of course it's about taking a few steps forward you know getting taken a step back and continuing that process. But I think for me what really stands out is that there are so many reasons to do what you and I think of as climate solutions for non climate reasons and honing in on that and like exemplifying that and elevating that builds more support and increases durability. And so I think about like when the IRA was passed for example we were so excited because of the promise that it had and looking out at a 10 year horizon and all that it could do. But if we knew it would only have lasted a couple of years you know as impact is immediately hamstrung by how long it can last. And so to me the best decarbonization well the fastest decarbonization is the best and it happens via what is politically viable in a given moment and has the chance at lasting and so to me the strongest climate policies the one that can last and deliver durable consistent decar results instead of like a jump forward that you know by the time the IRA happened and guidance was out and there was a boom and investment and deployment right away. But you only had a year or two of impact and then it got cut back and so I would love to see something that is a bigger amount of impact for a longer period of time. And then now we're in a moment where like wind and solar seem to be pretty self sufficient in a really comforting way right like that's not a bad news story. And meanwhile there's these other technologies that need to get commercialize that like republican support they kept all the policy on the books for them all the investment and like well for now I mean well this is I mean this gets to another point like transmission. Like what if instead of taking republicans that there were that they just want economically rational policy what if instead you look at their actions and you're like oh they just hate clean energy and they love fossil fuels and if they get wind of the fact that more transmission will net net benefit clean energy then they'll turn against that too which we as you say we've already seen some of that happening like they can they might say we're turning a transmission because clean energy. It's just going to build out a bunch if we build transmission but then if they find out if they read your report and they find out oh clean energy is going to get built out regardless if a bunch of transmission gets built why wouldn't they just polarize against that and then boom that's not durable that'll get undone next time they take power so does that are we going to take that off the table tube. What are they were going to let them define that out of the space of the possible to sure I think two things one I would be very impressed with myself if the republican machine took my report the reason to not to wind and solar I think there's other problems if somehow my report does that number one number two is that this shows like again wind and solar is 90% of what gets added to the grid like I'm not sure if that's going to be a problem. So I think that's a great grid like it is not anybody's interest to take that 90% off as one thing the third is that as we know we want to fill the glass into a lot more than that but I think this whole thing of like transmission helps renewables is not a secret and I think about you know I'll point out explicitly that Travis Fisher who's one of the most influential people on grid policy on the center right he testified in front of Congress this year that the phase down of the wind and solar tax credits. And solar tax credits has made him come around to transmission and so ironically there we see like the counter polarization is tangible and not just some like conspiracy theory or fear mongering or like us shooting ourselves in the foot preemptively. So I think it's worth thinking through like there's a deal space and there are things that are bipartisan certain technology certain policies and of course like we should still do things on our own that are ambitious in our own unique ways and attempt that you know three steps forward one step back like it's it's a multiple all of the approach there. And I would just say and then and then I'll let this point go like I've seen many times over my career this sort of technocratic DC liberal establishment take these think tank right wing guys at their word that like oh do we just want some technocratic tweaks in this policy so it's more economically rational and you're like oh then we can we can you know we can do what these people we can compromise with these people and then when they take power. They don't just do the little technocratic tweaks they take use a sledgehammer you know to like crush the whole thing like Travis Fisher is not representative of. the right wing coalition now, which is full of like maniacs. He represents a right wing think tank, like what armies does he have? What maga politicians are coming to him, as opposed to just saying, how can we hurt the left? How can we hurt what the left likes? That's how they behave when they get power. They don't put people like Travis Fisher in charge when they get power. When they get power, they go nuts. Yeah, on that, I do think for those technical changes are not the recommendations Republicans are touting or reporting that they'll do on their own in a trifecta for one. But two, I think it just speaks to policy design and how can you do it in a way that makes it harder to undo? And so right, like I think that all the stats and the math at my report shows and demonstrates, which strengthens the case. But even that aside, like the IRA, there was no sledgehammer taken to it. It was a scalpel. Every single tax credit was preserved in duration and in amount, except for Wyndon Solar. You applied the Fiat restriction and then they removed a lot of the grants and they kept the Office of Energy Dominance Financing Office, which does a huge amount of work on the loan side as well. And so they did take a scalpel to it and it's in their interest to make it seem like they completely squashed it all. Well, they squashed the EV parts, they squashed the grants, the loans, the power sector as well. Yes, well, we'll see. All right. So moving on then, the other point, which I agree with you on and one argue with you anyway, because I'm perverse like that is your second. One of your recommendations is, and this is the other big one is we should invest heavily in commercializing clean firm technologies, which again, I agree with hip-hip, hooray for doing that. But in the process of arguing for that, I feel like you're a little more pro-gas than I am comfortable with on this score. And one of the things I want to ask is like, I see a consensus forming in the DC board, the search light people, the breakthrough people, all these people bet that that wind and solar and batteries are like good for satisfying new demand, but they're not firm. And furthermore, can't be firm, that there's some essential difference between them and firm and clean firm technologies that can never be bridged by renewables and storage. And I guess I just don't. No one's ever been able to explain that to me in a way I can understand. I get that renewables with four hour batteries specifically can trim peaks, right? And they are trimming peaks. They're trimming peaks visibly in Texas, and in California, in South Australia, like not nothing. They're reducing the amount of natural gas needed. Natural gas generation needed in those places. But we have eight hour batteries already, semi-commercial. We have continued cost declines in batteries that might make further durations. Vible, we have other chemistries coming online. So do you mind? We have, I just did a pod hasn't come out yet about these new anodes made of silicon that boost energy density by 5x. There's long-term storage coming online. And I guess I just wonder like if you get enough storage, why isn't it firm? Like what is the firmness of natural gas that sufficient storage can't get renewable energy to? Does that make sense? Does that question make sense? It does, yeah. I mean, I think you outlined some of it right now. What we have on hand is four hour batteries, and that's insufficient to provide around the clock reliability. And I think I mean, I think I'm more bullish on on eight hour batteries in terms of their promise. We need to commercialize that. And the thing about batteries is that it shifts the time of generation rather than making it dispatchable. Like at any time power can come from it, you have to charge them up first. So there is a distinction between batteries and the storage that it provides, and they're like around the clock always available stuff. Well, let me stop you there. Like why, like if you build enough solar, right, you had this enormous excess during the day, which right now is a lot of it is just getting curtailed all over the place. If you can fill enough batteries up with that, then it will be there whenever you call on it in any way that seems meaningful to me. Like why wouldn't it be there whenever you call on it? If there's enough excess in enough is stored. Yeah, I mean, I would love to see numbers that show that like solar and storage can power everything. And I think some of the constraints are like back to the transmission and back to lands. Like do we need to build a solar farm the size of Manhattan to power the data centers? But oh, yes, that's possible. You know, you just need the storage to do it. Like no, you're constrained by land and other things as well. And I just I highly doubt that for an eight-hour storage will be able to do it. But like I mean, per the like these aren't mutually exclusive, like clean firm is something that is happening within this decade and is a really rich opportunity. And again, for more than just climate reasons, like this is a massive American export opportunity. This is a beautiful opportunity to transition fossil fuel communities in a way towards clean energy. And it's innovation, it's exciting, and it's really great rich power opportunity. And so like there is a difference, I think, between fully getting to supplant or substitute fossil versus just reduce its generation. And that was a theme running through the report is this concept I coined like shallow versus deep decarbonization and getting at how that happens. Yeah, that's that's what I guess I don't fully get. Like I just don't know why there's some ceiling on storage that makes it intrinsically shallow. You know what I mean? Like right now, it's only reducing fossil fuel generation. But why not if there's more and more and more and more of it won't it eventually eat into fossil capacity? Like you say, for instance, you say even in 90% renewable scenarios, you need some gas. And I'm just like, well, yeah, fine. Like okay, but is that what we're talking about? Are we talking about a 90-10 ratio? Because if that's true, then I don't see the impetus for building a bunch more gas. Like if we want, if we're aiming for a scenario where there's 10% gas, you're just going to have a bunch of gas plants sitting around that don't run most of the time. Yeah. It seems like we already have enough gas for that. Yeah, we do have enough gas, which is why the models don't build more gas. Because it's able to ramp up and down. But I mean, I'm excited to listen to your podcast with these battery people to learn more. And I also think there's some fantastic academics who do a lot of the like, what is stranded assets? Meaning it looked like and how do you get to that point? So that's kind of stuff that I don't really dip into at all in this report. Just because solar and storage and wind has the opportunity to power a high percentage of the power grid does not mean that you don't work on that last percentage and innovate there at the same time. Like, to me, it's a nice and basket thing. It's a timeline thing. Like, right, it doesn't make sense to start on the last 20% only when you reach the 80% threshold line. And I think there's some, I mean, you can look at data within energy markets and see that variable renewable penetration right now. Like, the average, it sits around 40% across all these grids and it can surge and spike up to 70 to 90%. But that's not a sustained level. So we're tackling a whole bunch of stuff at once, like increasing that penetration at a sustained level, innovation to get that last percent over the line. Transmission, obviously a huge piece of lifting that ceiling as we said. Like, there's so many things to solve at once. And it's worth doing them all. Okay, one other thing, which is that's been bugging me is people who are advocating for building a lot more grid, doubling the size of the grid, which again, I'm all for doing that by way of diminishing the contribution of better grid utilization. And this is a very hot topic now that's that's that's that a lot of people are talking about. Yeah. And I think in the report, you call better utilization marginal relative to what we need. And that just raised my hackles slightly. Like, you have like, brattle out there with studies, saying that there are like 200 gigawatts of unused capacity floating out there on the US grid. That seems like a lot to me. That's seem that doesn't seem marginal to me. And I guess like in the spirit of doing everything, why shouldn't we pursue utilization with all our might, even as we are building more grid? Like, why do we why do we need to dismiss the contribution of utilization? Sure. I think while I call it marginal, I also describe it as again, free money and worth pursuing rapidly and with urgency. And when I worked for Brian, we were doing research about policy opportunities to increase the speed and quantity of these grid enhancing technologies on the grid and in markets and looking at the utility business model and all that jazz. So totally worth doing. I'd say that the JP Morgan report by, oh, this is I'm Sembal Aspet, his first name. Michael. I could be getting my reports confused. So so many reports, Lily, you know this, you know the report, perfusion. Yes, yeah, might be problematic in its own right. But the so anyway, that's aside, you don't need to say that. Or meaning I don't need to say that. I've seen a report that quotes about like up to 40 gigawatts of demand flexibility capacity here in the US today and maybe sure some some of that amounts more to come. If we need to be growing the grid by like a doubling of the grid would be 1300 gigawatts. So if we have I mean you've cited 200 gigawatts of extra capacity available on the grid, that's just 15% for demand flexibility, you know, that's only a couple percentage points. And so it's just in scale to what it can contribute and the amount that a building that really needs to happen. So that's a diminished what it can do needs to pursue it at all costs. It just simply can't replace building. And that's a fact. Yeah, yeah, I get it. It's just that in the short term, there are these constraints on wind and solar that we are bumbling our way towards trying to lift. And while we're bumbling, yeah, you've got a bunch of tech guys out there pushing and pushing and pushing to build gas in the name of speed to power. So all I'm saying is you got utilization that could do what that short term gas is doing as you are trying to raise those long term constraints on wind and solar. I just want to avoid a big short term gas build out basically is what I'm it's what I'm about. Yeah, I'm about that too. And I think pushing for utilization and demand flexibility is important and great and like can't wait to see more fruition of that come to pass. It's still like a relatively novel thing and right, I don't know where the demand centers are being data centers are being built versus where that capacity is on the grid and the technicalities of how you reach all that. But I hope it's happening and and hope it can come to pass. We'll talk about difficult to model as utilities getting getting over themselves and getting serious about this. Who knows how to model that? You would have thought it would have happened by now. Yeah. Okay, well we most out of time, but I just wanted to do a couple of final things. One is pulling the lens back. This I think a useful frame. You talk a lot about how the IRA was passed in a particular set of circumstances, not just technical circumstances, but political circumstances, political economy circumstances, economic circumstances, and now we face a very different set of circumstances. And that should inform how we approach policy today. So maybe just take the camera back and talk about that on the on the sort of broadest level. Sure. I think about both the last six years of climate policy development, but then also the past 20. And first, the consensus in the climate movement was that you needed to tax carbon. That's the best policy to do. And we tried that several times, many times. And of course it never came to pass out of federal law. There's still in my inbox, will you? The soldiers on the Japanese islands that didn't hear about the war ending or whatever, like there's still out there. You know, and I respect their committed to their principles and their values and their priorities. But then like, I think it's beautiful. The conception of like make clean cheap and industrial strategy and incentivizing innovation and deployment in the demand side and manufacturing. And so there was able to be built a political coalition to make it pass. A lot of people spent years developing the policies, including the energy act of 2020 that happened during the Trump administration and bipartisan work that happened to lead up to the IRA, created a lot of the authorizations that then the Biden infrastructure law and IRA was able to appropriate and fund, which is a cool part of the history. But then I looked specifically at like 2021 as a window. And it was a democratic trifecta. Interest rates were zero. Like the administration was prioritizing jobs over inflation. And there wasn't much room for climate bipartisanship. It was like peak woke era. And with that came a law that was built and sold as like man's greatest climate law. And it is on paper. It's the best climate law America's had. But then it got attacked that way. And now almost all of those conditions are like completely inverse where cost of living and affordability politics is the name of the game. We have a massive demand growth that we did not see at the time. You know, geopolitical competition over this stuff has increased. And interest rates have stayed high. And so and we're in the Republican trifecta more polarized than ever, etc. And so I think as a result, like just simply looking at like the color of the room that we walked in in 2021, it's decorated really, really differently this time around. And so to me, that's like the first obvious sign that the next Democratic president should not try to redesign the room and decorate it, you know, the same way as what we had in 2021. It's just a different world. Yeah, the only thing I would add to that in this is again just grinding my personal access, which is like, I have seen so many cycles of this over my life of like, Republicans come in, spend all the money, right? Jack up the deficit, break everything. And then Democrats come in and have this reasonable conversation like, well, everything's broken now. So we have to so we have to, you know, trim our policy ambitions because they broke everything. And I just like, well, they took all the money and gave it to rich people. Democrats could, if they got real ambitious, take it back. And like they broke all our scientific research and they broke LPO and they broke all these institutions. We could rebuild those things like we could remove these barriers that are holding clean energy back. Like I just would like to see a little bit less, let's be reasonable given these constraints they placed on us. And a little bit more f these constraints, let's be ambitious, break the constraints and like try to try to win rather than just accommodate. I just want to see more ambition, Lily. I want ambition too. And I think I translate ambition to results. Like I want results more than I want ambition. So to me, it doesn't matter how colorful or massive or large a climate lies if it's only going to last a couple of years. So I care about durable, consistent results. But agree that like we should not do performative austerity, like make it a fetish for every bill or accept the framing that all spending is equivalent or put ourselves in traps. But it's possible to design policy in a way that doesn't cost as much ranging from permitting reform that literally is not a tax policy to just like the methane fee I think is pretty underrated that it was able to survive because it has revenue sources beyond 10 years. And like therefore you can't just repeal it that easily. And the Republicans had to figure out some other legally creative way to do so. So I think there's a lot of ways to have ambition. But most importantly, like as someone who cares deeply about climate and about climate mitigation, like to me, ambition is are we actually doing it or not? Okay, final question. Lily is in charge over the next 10 years. Miracle. Yeah, big miracle. Are just are just let's say, let's say a miracle happens in 2026 politically and then again in 2028, there's a democratic trifecta and Lily's in charge of the democratic trifecta. A slightly smaller miracle, still a miracle. What would you describe what you want to see over the next five to 10 years? What looks to you like good, smart, durable, clean energy policy that's going to produce results in advance decarbonization in advance, clean energy. Just sketch out what you'd like to see. Sure. I think the report is pretty simplistic in that it looks at a couple building blocks of renewables of gas and of clean firm. So there is a whole myriad of like, first technicalities and all this other stuff that maybe one day I'll be smart enough to dive into. But I'm not right now. I think on permitting reform, to me, that is a 1000% priority to happen this Congress. I do not want to do that next Congress or next administration like that needs to be done now. And I think if it's not done, the next administration will show up with an embarrassingly empty pantry of tools to use. Why this Congress and that next one? I mean, obviously like sooners better on some marginal way, but why the extreme urgency? Why if there's a better balance of next Congress wouldn't there be a better bill? You're right that there's urgency as in the sooner the better. Negotiators are quite close to becoming to a final deal and that's exciting. Next Congress, the people, the members who manage the committees, inter-astidiction will change and it looks like they will be less favorable to a bipartisan deal. And because comprehensive permitting reform requires compromise on both sides, you need that to happen. right now and right now the conditions are most favorable to making that happen. Okay. Permitting reform. What else? Permitting reform. I think I would love to direct a lot of, I'd love to direct a lot of attention towards commercializing clean firm. One of my friends did an analysis looking at all of the federal support that has gone to energy technologies and found that solar has received 50 times as much as geothermal, for example. And so we have a long way to go in the amount of respective and adequate support that we can give to these technologies to commercialize them, accelerate their timelines. But you specifically say in the report that tax credits might not be the best. Tax credits which are the most familiar and easily reached for and you know like the usual yeah. What the closest thing we have to a usual support policy for clean energy might not be best for clean firm. What sort of things would you like to see? Sure and just a note on that it's it's interesting because a tax credit works best when the market is mature enough to respond to a price signal. So therefore right now you need more patient capital. You need a long-term debts. And so the Office of Energy Dominance Financing is doing a really good job of living up to the promise that was revealed in the Biden administration and is continuing to do really good work. And so I'd really want to supercharge that and really compliment it to make sure that the full capital stack across the federal government is represented and is able to contribute to commercialization. I'd want to spend a lot of time focusing on building out the grid, doing it as fast as possible, doing it, making the most of it of what already exists. And you also mentioned some gas policies. Which maybe you could shut up now in terms of. Oh yeah. Preventing the worst of the damage from gas. Yes, I have a nice list. I just want to pull that out. Yeah, I think the model highlighted that the fossil fleet is pretty sticky and there are things that we can do. I'm a little bit assuming that the endangerment finding is going to be left for dead in some form or another. And at the very least it's worth thinking through other regulatory opportunities to decarbonize fossil fuels and reduce their carbon intensity. And so at least for ideas that by my understanding the oil and gas industry generally supports are to bring back the methane fee, expanding support for carbon credit, reinstating the greenhouse gas reporting program, which is making large emitters actually say how much they're emitting. Yeah. And all of that which can be used for a carbon tariff and it can be used to establish products level carbon intensity standards. And so yeah, there's a lot of progress or a lot of opportunity to work there. And then of course my bread and butter and like the things that I spend the most time about is international climate policy and competitiveness and export opportunities. And so there's a whole suite of packages you can do there. Both thinking about like being able to do to use American clean tech abroad, but then also looking at tariffs and trade barriers and what can we do to alleviate costs here on Americans and what tariffs make sense to lift and how can we make deployment as fast and cheap as possible here in the US. Well, maybe on a final note then because this this move or return us to something we almost began which with there's Noah's sort of concern about. Yeah. The signal that the death of our the seeming death at least the the optics of America's comprehensive climate plan getting destroyed. Send to the international community you worked on on carries. Yeah. International climate team. What what can we say to other countries basically like what you know like they from the outside perspective, I think it looks like America abandoned the fight. As you say and as your report very very ably shows that's not necessarily true. There's a lot of new answers a lot still going on, but the optics are terrible. What would you like to see a new democratic administration due to try to repair that breach? Do you have any ideas on just how to like regain the trust and respect of other countries specifically on this fight? Yes, that's something that I spent a lot of time thinking about and there's a whole policy community of people putting a lot of time and energy into thinking that through. And I think one thing I'll point out is that other countries are upset with America for reasons far worse than climate and far deeper than climate in the Paris. Like right like how trustworthy we are is not because we pulled out of the Paris agreement. It's because of everything else. Yes. Which would take too long to enumerate. One tiny piece of the puzzle. Exactly. So I think like it is helpful to show that like the American private sector and Mark of momentum in states are still committed to this and like the American federal government will one day reduce our efforts on climate here domestically. But something I think is interesting is that the US positioning to be able to contribute to global climate change is really in our innovation here at home and the potential to diffuse clean energy abroad. And so to give an example again when the IRA came out the Rodeum Group released some analysis that showed that the emissions reductions benefits of the IRA would be larger in the rest of the world by two to four X compared to here at home. And that's because of the power of the United States to commercial to invent to commercialize to grow and then to do technology abroad. Yep. And so while the US is obviously a massive historical emitter the historical emitter and there's a lot that we need to do to decarbonize ourselves. We are not in any way hamstrung from still being able to help the rest of the world. And so there is a whole set of policies in the economic state crafts and foreign policy land ranging from international investments and foreign assistance and trade. And all these other tools that and like finding opportunities for climate and clean energy and normal pillars of foreign policy to be able to like get our solutions out in the world to incentivize innovation and yeah to accelerate the energy transition abroad. So there's there's a really ripe and big toolkit that is not limited to the UNFCC and to the Paris Agreement and that's really exciting because it means I think that the next administration will come in with a lot more creative ideas a lot more heft behind the international climate site. All right. Well, leave it there. I kept you too long. It's great. Thank you so much. Really clever. Interesting report really stimulating a lot of interesting discussions. Thank you for doing it and thank you for walking us through it. Of course, really fun to talk to you and glad we got to spend time going through all the monkey stuff. That's my jam. All right. Thanks, Lily. Thanks everybody. You've been listening to Voltz founded and hosted by me David Roberts produced by Nate PV and supported entirely through the generosity of listeners like you. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider telling a friend about Voltz. That's how this show grows and survives through word of mouth. See you next time. [Music]