[Episode #192] – When is Hydrogen ‘Clean’?
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 introduced two tax credits to encourage the development of a domestic clean hydrogen industry in the United States. These tax credits can potentially be worth...
View Article[Episode #193] – Harmonizing EU and US climate policies
As the European Union and the United States work toward stronger climate policies, their two divergent approaches are creating tension. The EU has opted for a mix of rewards and penalties to...
View Article[Episode #194] – Materials Requirements of the Transition
Energy transition skeptics continue to argue that certain critical minerals and materials, such as “rare earth” metals, place a fundamental limitation on scaling up wind, solar, storage and EVs. But is...
View Article[Episode #195] – Permafrost and climate ‘tipping points’
Is the Arctic permafrost in a warming feedback loop that will unleash a methane bomb, pushing the planet past a tipping point and into inevitable climate doom? Not precisely. But the warming permafrost...
View Article[Episode #196] – Unglamorous Solutions
Most energy transition reporting narrowly focuses on technology stories. When journalists do occasionally write about energy transition policy and politics, they tend to limit the framing to a...
View Article[Episode #197] – Virtual Power Plants (VPPs)
The time may have arrived for Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) to fully realize their potential. In a VPP, groups of distributed energy resources (DERs) like EVs, batteries, and heat pumps can be managed to...
View Article[Episode #198] – The Coal Trap
Why have coal-mining communities continued to white-knuckle their interests in coal long after it was clear the industry was well into decline and would never come back? How were politicians able to...
View Article[Episode #199] – India Update Part 1
This is part one of our interview with Mohua Mukherjee, a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Previously, she was a development economist and project manager with the...
View Article[Episode #200] – ETS Retrospective
To mark the milestone of our 200th episode, we’re taking a look back at how the energy transition has progressed since we launched this podcast in 2015. We revisit the “war on coal”, the concept of the...
View Article[Episode #201] – India Update Part 2
This is part two of our interview with Mohua Mukherjee, a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Previously, she was a development economist and project manager with the...
View Article[Episode #202] – UK’s Green Day
On March 30th, in what some have dubbed its ‘Green Day,” the UK government released a package of plans to advance its action on climate and the energy transition. A centerpiece of the package detailed...
View Article[Episode #203] – The Case for Climate Optimism
Why does so much media coverage of climate change emphasize the worst-case scenarios and the slow speed of the energy transition? Why don’t more stories highlight how the energy transition is working...
View Article[Episode #204] – Regulatory Reform
Whose job is it to lead the energy transition? In previous episodes, we’ve talked about how markets can guide the transition, especially after targeted reforms. We’ve considered the role of regulators,...
View Article[Episode #205] – Rebuilding the Grid from the Bottom-up
A tsunami of distributed energy resources (DERs) is starting to arrive on the grid. Customers are adopting millions of EVs, rooftop solar systems, battery backup units, and other devices that can...
View Article[Episode #206] – Regulatory Capture in Texas
As we have discussed in previous episodes of the show (like Episodes #73, #177, and #198), state regulators and legislators can be ‘captured’ by the industries they are supposed to regulate and wind up...
View Article[Episode #207] – 8th Anniversary Show
For the Energy Transition Show’s eighth anniversary, we welcome back energy researcher Jonathan Koomey, a veteran guest who shares invaluable insights with us in our annual reviews. We kick off the...
View Article[Episode #1] – The Real War on Coal
How the real war on coal is about economics, geology, and little skirmishes in local courts, not a national or presidential campaign; and the tragic failing of politics to address the phasing-out of...
View Article[Episode #2] – Limits on the Grid – Part 1
What the modeling work of our national renewable energy lab tells us about how far renewables can go on the grid under various scenarios, and their real technical limits.
View Article[Episode #3] – Limits on the Grid – Part 2
How energy markets need to change to level the playing field for renewables, how renewables should be valued, and whether wind and solar must "eat their own lunch" by virtue of having a free marginal...
View Article[Episode #4] – Energiewende
All about Germany's famed energy transition effort, the Energiewende. What it is, what it isn't (with a strong dose of mythbusting), and what the future of grid power looks like from one of the...
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