Shift Key with Robinson Meyer

Climate and environmental advocates are sharply divided over the Senate’s bipartisan permitting reform proposal. But what most people agree is that the bill’s changes to electricity and transmission law are really, really good — and in some sense are much better than expected.

Because of how the media works, that means nobody has talked about these proposals very much. So on this show, we wanted to focus on the part of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act that has gotten rave reviews.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by David Pomerantz, the executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute and a former Greenpeace campaigner. They discuss how the bill would rewrite electricity law, why the bill is bad for utilities, and why utilities are (in Dave’s view) such a problem for decarbonization.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

The Senate’s Big Bipartisan Permitting Deal, Explained

The Senate Permitting Deal Contains a Data Center Double Tap

The Long, Strange Success Story of America’s Biggest Clean Energy Project

Previously on Shift Key: What a Permitting Reform Deal Could Look Like

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $1,000. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every midterm, the focus is on Congress — and for good reason. But in two weeks, Americans will vote on a number of state races that will matter immensely to the energy system, the power grid, and the future direction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate Cabinet tracks those races, using what it calls “the moneyball approach” to identify the local offices nationwide with the most potential climate impact. On this episode of Shift Key, Caroline Spears, the founder and executive director of Climate Cabinet, joins Rob to discuss what's at stake this election, which state races will matter the most, and which races to watch to see where climate policy might go in 2027 and beyond.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Caroline’s elections to watch:

Georgia Public Utility Commission

Arizona Corporation Commission

Eileen Hartnett Albillar in Pennsylvania Senate District 6

Trevor Jung, from Wisconsin Senate District 21

Aaron Lieberman in Arizona Senate District 4

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

No researcher has been more cited in lawsuits against fossil fuel infrastructure than Peter Erickson. As an affiliated researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, Peter studies how pipelines and other oil and gas supply expansions can increase global carbon emissions. His work has been critical to the activist fights against the Keystone XL pipeline, the Enbridge pipeline, and others.

But in recent years, he’s taken a more nuanced approach to fossil fuel supply — in part because, as he has shown, it can enrich the oil and gas industry in a surprising but direct way. On this episode of Shift Key, Peter joins Rob to discuss why blocking fossil fuel supply can lower emissions, why it can counterintuitively transfer wealth from energy consumers to fossil fuel firms, and what it all might mean for the future of climate policy.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Peter’s papers:

"Assessing carbon lock-in”

"Impact of the Keystone XL pipeline on global oil markets and greenhouse gas emissions"

"Would constraining US fossil fuel production affect global CO2 emissions? A case study of US leasing policy"

"Limiting fossil fuel production as the next big step in climate policy"

"Rethinking the case against new oil and gas fields"

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are two big trends in the American battery sector at the moment. The first is that the electric vehicle market is deteriorating. GM, for instance, sold just 25,000 EVs in the third quarter of this year. Ford sold 6,000 EVs. Even the long-awaited return of the Chevy Bolt sold just 8,000 units — a small fraction of the vehicle’s already-limited production run. At the same time, the data center boom and the return of electricity growth is boosting batteries of all kinds ​not​ designed to power EVs.

Our guest today is in charge of navigating those opposing trends and figuring out what comes next. Kurt Kelty started his career at Panasonic in 1993, where he led the company’s battery research lab. He then went on to Tesla, helping to build the first Gigafactory. Since February 2024, he’s been vice president of battery and sustainability at GM. We talked about manufacturing generally, how the U.S. battery manufacturing sector should look, and how companies should be structured to compete globally, even though they’re making batteries for a mostly U.S. audience.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

​Mentioned:

The Senate’s Big Bipartisan Permitting Deal, Explained

On Rivian’s record-setting Q3

Previously on Shift Key: Data Centers Are Creating a New Kind of Battery Monster

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Governor Mikie Sherrill is a former Navy pilot, federal prosecutor, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was elected New Jersey's governor in November 2025 in a campaign dominated by the state’s surging electricity prices.

For this episode of Shift Key, Governor Sherrill joined Heatmap correspondent Matthew Zeitlin for a live conversation at our Heatmap House event, part of New York Climate Week. She reflected on electricity inflation, power markets, and what a data center developer would need to do to build in New Jersey.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

​Mentioned:

Matthew on Governor Sherrill’s electricity rate freeze​

Previously on Shift Key: Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Trump’s Pro-Nuclear, Pro-Fossil Fuel Agenda

Previously on Shift Key: Al Gore on AI, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ and the Biggest Surprises of the Past 20 Yearst 20 Years

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Formed through a joint venture between Wärtsilä and RCT Solutions, Valo helps utilities, independent power producers, and developers navigate market and grid complexity without sacrificing system performance. Learn more at valoenergy.com.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Every year Giving Green researches the top climate nonprofits and sends 100% of every dollar donated to its Giving Green Fund straight to them. Make your first gift before the new year, and it will be matched up to $500. Go to GivingGreen.earth/Shift.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former Vice President Al Gore needs no introduction. He is, in a way, the original climate influencer. His film An Inconvenient Truth gave rise to a new wave of climate activism in the 2000s. It was one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time upon its release, and it won an Oscar, a Grammy, and — for Vice President Gore — a Nobel Peace Prize.

He’s remained active in climate policy since then and leads the Climate Reality Project. He is also an investor and was a longtime director at Apple.

For this episode of Shift Key, Vice President Gore joined Rob for a live conversation at our Heatmap House event, part of New York Climate Week. He reflected on the 20th anniversary of An Inconvenient Truth, the existential risk of artificial intelligence, and what has surprised him most about the evolution of climate politics.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Previously on Shift Key: Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Trump’s Pro-Nuclear, Pro-Fossil Fuel Agenda

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since taking office last year, the Trump administration has blocked renewable energy development and attacked climate change policy, prioritized fossil fuels and encouraged nuclear energy, and started a war that led to a global oil and gas supply shock.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has been the face of much of that policy agenda. For this episode of Shift Key, he joined Rob for a live conversation at our Heatmap House event, part of New York Climate Week. He answered questions about the Trump administration’s war on wind, a ban on diesel fuel exports, and how China has been able to buttress global oil supplies since the spring.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Chris Wright Doesn’t Think We’ll Have a Diesel Export Ban

Trump Keeps Wind Farms Waiting Despite Court Ruling

Trump’s War Against Wind Energy: A Timeline

Previously on Shift Key: How China Saved the World From Trump’s Energy Crisis

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the past few years, something surprising has happened in American energy policy: States and utilities have started trying to build new nuclear plants.

A new kind of company — the nuclear developer — is now trying to handle those projects. The most prominent by far is The Nuclear Company, a startup that has hired many of the same people who built the new Vogtle plant in Georgia. On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Jonathan Webb, the CEO of the Nuclear Company. They discuss the company’s goal of building “fleet-scale” nuclear, why Jonathan believes nuclear is poised for a revival, and what has changed since the company began.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Previously on Shift Key: The Lesson Nuclear Companies Should Take From the Dot-Com Boom

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

America has some of the world’s best data about its own internal energy, industrial economy, and carbon emissions. That’s thanks to a federal agency called the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which painstakingly collects and updates the data every week.

But EIA data can be hard to access — and even harder to share and understand. A new project aims to change that. U.S. Energy Data takes federal energy data and repackages it, helping amateurs and experts understand the power grid, liquid fuels, and more. It is now the easiest way to make and share charts with federal energy data.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist and writer who advised and prototyped US Energy Data. She is also the author of Not the End of the World and Clearing the Air, as well as a senior researcher at the University of Oxford and the deputy editor at Our World in Data. Rob and Hannah discuss how the platform came together, what makes it such a valuable resource, and what we can learn from it about the state of the energy transition.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

U.S. Energy Data

Previously on Shift Key: Daniel Palken of Arnold Ventures joined us to discuss permitting reform

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

As we catch up from summer vacation, we’re bringing you a favorite from the Shift Key archive. We’ll be back in your feed with more fresh episodes starting next week.

What is the difference between energy and power? How does the power grid work? And what’s the difference between a megawatt and a megawatt-hour?

On this week’s episode, we answer those questions and many, many more. This was the start of Shift Key Summer School, a series of introductory “lecture conversations” meant to cover the basics of energy and the power grid for listeners of every experience level and background. In less than an hour, Rob and former Shift Key co-host Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, try to get you up to speed on how to think about energy, power, horsepower, volts, amps, and what uses (approximately) 1 watt-hour, 1 kilowatt-hour, 1 megawatt-hour, and 1 gigawatt-hour.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Decarbonize Your Life

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Verse’s software platform Aria helps data centers connect to the grid faster and optimize power operations in real time. Learn more at verse.inc.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

The United States is staring down a natural gas buildout of gigantic proportions.

Amazon wants to build what would be the country’s largest power plant in Texas — and run it entirely on natural gas. Not to be outdone, OpenAI is plotting an even larger power plant in Ohio that, if built, would become the world’s largest gas power facility. How should we think about this boom — and about the AI and technology companies behind it, who remain some of the world’s biggest buyers of clean energy?

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Emily Pontecorvo, a Heatmap founding staff writer. They discuss what Emily learned identifying the country’s 10 biggest gas projects, what surprised her most, and what this means for the country’s climate trajectory — and Big Tech’s corporate net-zero goals.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

The U.S. Is Building Natural Gas Power Twice as Fast as China

Emily on Amazon’s Gigawatt Ranch

Rob on OpenAI and the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Verse's software platform Aria helps data centers connect to the grid faster and optimize power operations in real time. Learn more at verse.inc.

RE+ 26 is the largest clean energy event in North America, happening November 16th through 19th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at re-plus.com and use code SHIFTKEY20 to save 20% off a Full Conference pass.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two years ago, Donald Trump made an outlandish campaign promise: He would cut Americans’ power bills in half.

It was a ridiculous, impossible pledge — but even so, the affordability problem didn’t need to get this bad. A new report, out this week from the Natural Resources Defense Council, looks at the economic, environmental, and public health costs of Trump’s regulatory and legislative clean energy policies, including his rollback of the wind and solar tax credits.

The report’s author, Amanda Levin, joins Rob on this episode of Shift Key. Levin is a Director of Policy Analysis at the NRDC’s Science Office. They discuss why Trump’s repeal will have long-term effects, the underrated public health impacts of the rollback, and why Levin believes the credits should be restored.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Amanda Levin’s new report:An Affordability Crisis of Trump’s Own Making

A ‘Glass Half Full’ Isn’t Enough to Fight Climate Change

Previously on Shift Key: The New Paper Arguing Biden’s Power Sector Emissions Cuts Are Largely Intact — Even Under Trump

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

Verse's software platform Aria helps data centers connect to the grid faster and optimize power operations in real time. Learn more at verse.inc.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

California now has the most expensive electricity in the continental United States. It also has expensive housing … and an increasingly broken home insurance market.

Are the three phenomena linked? They might be. Due to a peculiarity in the state’s constitution, electricity utilities are incentivized to pay for a huge amount of wildfire prevention, above and beyond what would be seen as economically reasonable in another state. Fixing that constitutional peculiarity could help bring down energy costs and heal the home insurance market, but it will be complicated — and a number of policies will need to get passed at the same time.

That’s what Lauren Teixeira argues in her new report, “Rewiring Risk.” Teixeira, a senior climate and energy analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, joins Rob for today’s episode of Shift Key. They discuss how California found itself in this situation, how it might be fixed, and why the state treats utilities as a sin-eater for wildfire risk.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Lauren’s report: Rewiring Risk

Rethinking Utility Wildfire Risk in California

Previously on Shift Key: How California Broke Its Electricity Bills

Previously on Shift Key: How Wildfires Destroyed California’s Insurance Market

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every few years, the Pacific Ocean’s surface waters become especially warm near the equator, a climatic phenomenon known as El Niño.

El Niño is a normal part of the climate system, but even in a normal year, it can trigger extreme weather around the world. Forecasters are worried that the current El Niño — which just began a few weeks ago — is going to be anything but normal. Models suggest that we could soon see the hottest El Niño ever measured, with unpredictable and catastrophic effects for ecosystems and societies around the world.

What does that mean? And why does this El Niño look so bad? On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Zeke Hausfather, a climate research lead at Stripe and a research scientist at Berkeley Earth. They discuss what forecast models are saying about this El Niño, why it gives us a glance at the future, and whether climate change itself is accelerating.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

NOAA’s El Niño page and the relative El Niño index

An Assessment of Earth's Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence, the 2020 paper where Zeke was a coauthor

Zeke’s blog post on AI emissions: The real energy use of agentic AI

John Bistline’s post on AI emissions at Watershed

Heatmap’s coverage of AI emissions: A New Guesstimate for Corporate AI Emissions

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

At this point, when you hear “venture capitalist,” you probably think of … software. Or artificial intelligence. Or cryptocurrency.

The Engine Ventures, which spun out of MIT a few years ago, is different. It tries to fund what it calls “tough tech,” a somewhat nebulous category that includes companies working in energy, decarbonization, health, and infrastructure. As such, it’s backed some of the most interesting “climate tech” companies in business today, such as Form Energy, Commonwealth Fusion.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with Katie Rae, the CEO and managing partner of Engine Ventures. They chat about what’s missing from America’s innovation ecosystem, how close fusion is to succeeding, and whether AI is a bubble (whatever that might mean).

One more note: Early in our conversation, Katie says that Commonwealth Fusion has built “more than 300” tokamak reactors. That was, unfortunately, an overestimate. It’s actually built closer to more than 150 reactors. Her team contacted us after her appearance to correct the record.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

From Heatmap: Commonwealth Fusion Systems Wins Over New Class of Investors With $1 Billion Raise

Previously on Shift Key: Why John Arnold Is ‘Very Optimistic’ Permitting Reform Will Pass This Year

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Discover the Yale Clean and Equitable Energy Development online certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. In this fully online, 5-month program, you’ll learn from leading experts, develop practical skills, and grow a powerful network. Visit cbey.yale.edu to learn more and apply.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Democratic Party’s climate and energy policy is at a difficult moment. Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has attacked solar and wind energy, started an inflationary war, and repealed key parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. And about a year and a half from now, Democrats will pick a presidential candidate and pitch their energy and climate policies to voters again.

How are key Democrats feeling at this moment? Rob recently had a chance to sit down with two of the party’s most important energy policy makers — Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, and former Energy Secretary and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm — for an in-person conversation in Washington, D.C.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with Senator Heinrich and Secretary Granholm, about fuel prices, the state of permitting discussions, AI data centers, and what each learned from writing — and implementing — the Inflation Reduction Act.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode onApple Podcasts,Spotify,Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also addthe show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Previously on Shift Key: What Senator Martin Heinrich Needs to See in a Permitting Deal

Previously on Shift Key: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on What Comes After Biden’s Climate Agenda

Previously on Heatmap: 3 Takeaways From Our SunZia Investigation

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s really one one good thing that could happen this year in Congress for clean energy: permitting reform. If lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal on the country’s permitting system, they could make it easier to build solar, wind, and transmission lines — as well as every other kind of infrastructure.

But will it happen? What are the obstacles to a deal? What would be in a deal? On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Daniel Palken, the director of infrastructure for energy and permitting at Arnold Ventures. They discuss the recent history of permitting reform, the policies that would probably make up a deal, and why it might be now or never for reforming the permitting system.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

The FREEDOM Act, which would limit the president’s ability to yank permits

Rob’s SunZia story: The Long, Strange Success Story of America’s Biggest Clean Energy Project

Why the National Historic Preservation Act falls harder on transmission projects than pipelines

Previously on Heatmap: What Is Permitting Reform? Here’s a Cheat Sheet.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Tandem PV is the leader in perovskite solar technology. We’re building the most efficient and durable perovskite solar panels on the market at our factory in Freemont, California. Learn how we're restoring U.S. leadership for the next era of solar manufacturing at http://tandempv.com/.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charm Industrial is a climate tech company that takes biomass and converts it into a heavy, carbon-rich oil that can be injected underground, transmuting and storing the greenhouse gas far from the atmosphere. They’re scaling up fast and recently announced a new $20 million debt facility with JP Morgan; the bank also agreed to buy more than 60,000 tons worth of removals from them.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Peter Reinhardt, the CEO and cofounder of Charm. (He’s also the CEO of the trucking company Revoy, a founder of the autoimmune therapeutics company Antipode, and a board member at the electricity data company Arcadia.) They talk about what makes Charm different, how it is scaling operations as a carbon removal company, and the changing politics of climate change.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Charm’s new deal with JP Morgan

The ProPublica story Peter criticized

“Over-Regulation is Doubling the Cost,” by Peter

The Cantwell-Sheehy bipartisan carbon removal bill

Previously on Heatmap: Charm Is Working With the U.S. Forest Service on a Carbon Removal Pilot

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Tandem PV is the leader in perovskite solar technology. We’re building the most efficient and durable perovskite solar panels on the market at our factory in Freemont, California. Learn how we're restoring U.S. leadership for the next era of solar manufacturing at http://tandempv.com/.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

For more than 30 years, a heterodox group of scientists have proposed injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth, thereby cooling the atmosphere and reversing climate change.

But actual research into the idea has remained taboo, or at least the province of university and government labs. Then, last year, Heatmap broke the story of an Israeli-American company named Stardust Solutions that had raised $60 million to develop a new solar geoengineering technology. This system would be easier to control and track than the traditional approach to geoengineering, it claims.

On this episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by Yanai Yedvab, the cofounder and CEO of Stardust. They discuss why Stardust is researching geoengineering now, whether a for-profit company belongs in the space, why Yanai believes Stardust’s particles are superior to sulfate aerosols, and whether Stardust has or will ever conduct outdoor experiments.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

Rob’s initial story on Stardust: Stardust Solutions, a Geoengineering Startup, Raises $60 Million to Build a Solar-Reflecting System by 2030

Stardust’s new governance commitments

What we know about Stardust’s tiny spheres

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

Tandem PV is the leader in perovskite solar technology. We’re building the most efficient and durable perovskite solar panels on the market at our factory in Freemont, California. Learn how we're restoring U.S. leadership for the next era of solar manufacturing at http://tandempv.com/.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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, according to a new study that we’re covering exclusively at Heatmap. Lily Bermel, the report’s author and a visiting fellow at the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy, argues that at least where energy generation is concerned, the glass is more than “half full.”

On this episode of Shift Key, Lily joins Rob to discuss what we learned from Biden’s big climate law, why it likely never would have achieved its projected emissions declines (at least not without a tremendous transmission buildout), and how studying its legacy changed her mind about policy going forward.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

The “Glass Half Full” report

More from Rob on Lily’s findings

From Heatmap: The Wind and Solar Tax Credits Are About to Expire. Will They Come Back?

Heatmap’s cheat sheet on how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act changed America’s clean energy law

Previously on Shift Key: What Has All This Back-and-Forth Climate Legislating Bought Us?

Jesse Jenkins’ paper on transmission’s role in achieving the IRA’s goals

Brendan Duke’s policy affordability framework

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by ...

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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