Field notes The Energy Transition for the Rest of Us

Source · Episodes

Critical Capital

A podcast about the money behind energy and physical infrastructure. One long interview per episode, every other Tuesday.

Hosted by
Alfred Johnson
Published by
Crux and Latitude Studios
Notes
11
Span
Apr 2026 – Sep 2026
Reading
~25,000 words

2026 11

  1. 15 Sep 2026 What it costs to make power cheap with Zach Dell, co-founder and CEO, Base Power If you treat home electricity as a commodity rather than a premium product, what actually sets its price, and what does a company have to do to drive that price down?
  2. 1 Sep 2026 What it takes to build in America again with Erin Price-Wright, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, investing in energy, mining and heavy industry for the firm’s American Dynamism practice; previously an engineer at Palantir Now that capital has arrived for factories, mines and grid hardware, what actually decides whether they get built in the United States?
  3. 18 Aug 2026 AI is disrupting services. What does that mean for power demand? with Jake Saper, partner, Emergence Capital; enterprise software and AI infrastructure investor who began his career developing solar in India. The transcript renders his surname as both “Saper” and “Saber”; this note uses the dominant rendering. If AI starts to change how services such as law, accounting and insurance are actually delivered, what does that imply for how much compute, and how much power, the economy will end up needing?
  4. 4 Aug 2026 Thom Tillis on energy, China, and leaving the Senate with Thom Tillis, United States Senator (Republican, North Carolina), not seeking re-election; formerly speaker in the North Carolina legislature and a partner at Price Waterhouse Why can’t the United States hold an energy policy together across a change of administration, and what would it take to build one that survives?
  5. 21 Jul 2026 The unprecedented opportunity for infrastructure investors with Jessica Bailey, Global Head of Infrastructure, Nuveen; previously co-founder of Greenworks Lending, and before that at the Connecticut Green Bank and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund What is actually driving the current infrastructure boom, and if capital is abundant, what will end up limiting it?
  6. 7 Jul 2026 Navigating the new world disorder with David Miliband, president and CEO, International Rescue Committee; previously a member of the British Parliament and UK foreign secretary When distributed clean energy has never been cheaper, why do the world’s most vulnerable people still have no electricity, and what would actually change that?
  7. 23 Jun 2026 The trillion-dollar collision between AI and the grid with Varun Sivaram, founder and CEO, Emerald AI; previously an executive at two clean energy developers and a senior advisor at the US State Department Can the grid absorb the data centers that AI wants to build, and if the answer is no, what is the cheapest thing to change?
  8. 9 Jun 2026 The US-China rivalry runs through energy and minerals with Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, founding dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, author of Destined for War Can the United States and China keep competing without sliding into war?
  9. 26 May 2026 The clean energy transition has a hardware problem with Drew Baglino, founder and CEO, Heron Power; previously nearly two decades at Tesla, where he was powertrain architect for the Model S and later led the global charging and energy business If the world has to build several times as much electricity system as it has today, what is actually holding up the build, and can the equipment that moves the power be replaced with something that scales faster?
  10. 7 May 2026 Can US industrial trade policy stay on course? with Sarah Bianchi, senior managing director and chief strategist of international political affairs and public policy, Evercore; previously Deputy US Trade Representative, responsible for Asia, Africa, the energy transition and critical minerals Now that both parties agree the United States should build more at home, can trade and industrial policy hold a course steady enough for investors to put money behind it?
  11. 28 Apr 2026 Atoms, bits, and the trillion-dollar manufacturing race with Aidan Madigan-Curtis, partner, Eclipse Ventures; previously at Apple, then five or six years at Samsara Who wins when the digital economy runs into the physical one, and what would the United States have to do to compete again at making, powering and moving things?