Even as he has torn down climate policy, Donald Trump has normalized the use of more powerful & aggressive tools of economic statecraft, like equity stakes in private companies, new federal authorities, and sovereign wealth funds. The Roosevelt Institute recently issued a collection of 17 essays exploring how a future administration could use the tools Trump has assembled for decarbonization. I talk with Todd Tucker, editor of and contributor to the volume, about these new industrial planning tools.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

02:32 – Did Biden's green policy prove durable?

09:39 – The Defense Production Act and the Sable pipeline

14:59 – Whether to leave the DPA on the table

15:35 – Executive orders and the durability problem

19:01 – Whether the Supreme Court treats Democrats differently

22:03 – Executive power and a disempowered Congress

25:05 – Senate malapportionment and filibuster reform

29:43 – Court reform and the major questions doctrine

34:13 – Manufacturing vs. deployment

42:52 – Permitting, abundance, and theory of power

49:20 – Public ownership and the U.S. Steel golden share

55:22 – What state capitalism could look like for green ends

59:56 – Shelley Welton on utilities as planning tools

1:02:42 – Speed vs. deliberation before 2029

Typically, AI data centers are large, inflexible loads that the grid has to build around, which is one reason utilities take so long to connect them. Emerald AI has designed a “digital brain” that can ramp down, move, or delay computing jobs in a data center on demand, making a data center a flexible asset to the grid. I talk with CEO Varun Sivaram about how the software works, what flexibility costs the compute, why it beats just installing batteries, whether utilities can enforce it, and what it would mean for clean energy.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

03:05 – Temporal, spatial, and resource flexibility

06:26 – What Emerald Conductor touches on site

08:35 – Who decides which workloads can flex

10:55 – Who is liable when a job slows down

13:45 – Who actually signs the contract

14:49 – Larger and faster grid connections

18:02 – Enforcing the flexibility promise

19:05 – What broke in the demos, from bad nodes to slow telemetry

26:41 – What flexing costs the compute jobs

29:21 – Why not just use batteries, and the demand merit order

35:44 – Training, inference, and substation-scale data centers

40:23 – PJM, ERCOT, and legal enforceability

44:50 – Renewables, gas, and consumer bills

When it comes to innovative new grid technologies, every utility wants to be the third in line to try them. None of them want to be the first to take risks and iron out new processes. That's one reason grid-enhancing technologies, better software, and smarter internal procedures stay stuck in pilot purgatory, even as the industry faces the biggest buildout since rural electrification. PG&E's Quinn Nakayama and Microsoft's Hanna Grene discuss what's actually blocking utility innovation — and Quinn offers a novel proposal for paying someone to go first.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

03:44 – Why grid-enhancing technologies stall in the US

07:54 – Selling grid software into utilities: what goes wrong

11:08 – From a pipes-and-wires company to a technology company

12:38 – Pilot program hell and the last 30 percent

15:04 – Innovation as a bolt-on, and the three muscles

17:47 – The digital spine, data quality, and smart meters

23:56 – Org chart versus work chart

25:09 – Strategy, structure, people, process, technology

29:24 – Build, buy, and the ecosystem skill set

36:15 – Data leakage, shadow AI, and paying twice

41:12 – Why utility product cycles run five to seven years

46:27 – Human in the loop, and EPRI's SAFERai.power

49:06 – Advanced market commitments and the kingmaker problem

53:22 – EPIC, and whether software counts as infrastructure

01:00:05 – The CapEx incentive problem and final advice

1:04:34 – Digital Infrastructure as Capital Spend

1:06:53 – Final Advice