Field notes The Energy Transition for the Rest of Us

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Policy and regulation

51 notes · Catalyst 38 · Critical Capital 4 · Steel For Fuel 9

  1. Catalyst · 3 Sep 2026 What comes after the data center backlash? with Brian Janous, co-founder and chief commercial officer, Cloverleaf Infrastructure Is the backlash against data centers something developers can actually fix, and if it is not, where does the buildout go instead?
  2. Critical Capital · 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. Critical Capital · 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?
  4. Catalyst · 23 Jul 2026 The multi-billion dollar promise of vehicle-to-grid integration with Steve Letendre, senior advisor, Vehicle-Grid Integration Council; founder and editor, V2Gnews.com Bidirectional cars and chargers finally exist, so if the parked battery in the garage still does not show up on the grid, what is actually holding it back?
  5. Critical Capital · 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. Catalyst · 1 Jul 2026 Inside the most sophisticated plan for solar geoengineering with Yanai Yedvab, CEO and co-founder, Stardust If cooling the whole planet costs about what one hyperscale data center costs, what would make it safe enough to consider, and who decides whether it happens?
  7. Catalyst · 25 Jun 2026 How data centers are complicating transmission expansion with Maeve Allsup, senior reporter, Latitude Media Why is a transmission line that the AI boom made more necessary getting harder to build because of the AI boom?
  8. Catalyst · 11 Jun 2026 How China is reshaping the global auto market with Michael Dunne, CEO, Dunne Insights China now exports more cars than any country ever has, to everywhere except the United States. What is actually driving that, and is the American wall real protection or just delay?
  9. Critical Capital · 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?
  10. Catalyst · 2 Apr 2026 Building a domestic nuclear fuel supply chain with Scott Nolan, founder and CEO, General Matter If the US is going to build a lot of nuclear, where is its fuel supply chain actually broken, and can the broken part be rebuilt in time?
  11. Catalyst · 26 Mar 2026 The state and future of nuclear waste with Jen Shafer, professor in the nuclear science and engineering program, Colorado School of Mines What is US nuclear waste actually made of, what is happening to it, and does a new wave of reactors change the problem?
  12. Catalyst · 19 Mar 2026 Scaling America’s domestic solar supply chain with Scott Moskowitz, VP of market strategy and public affairs, Qcells; board chair, Solar Energy Industries Association The US has reshored solar module assembly. Can it build the rest of the supply chain, and what is actually stopping it?
  13. Catalyst · 29 Jan 2026 The rise of permissionless DERs with James McGinniss, co-founder and CEO, David Energy What are “permissionless” distributed energy resources, and can batteries small enough to plug into a wall outlet ever add up to enough capacity to matter?
  14. Catalyst · 20 Nov 2025 Looking for a turnaround in transmission with Rob Gramlich, founder and president, Grid Strategies A year after a bleak assessment of US transmission, has anything actually turned around?
  15. Catalyst · 30 Oct 2025 Unpacking DOE’s proposal to transform data center interconnection with Allison Clements, FERC commissioner 2020-2024, now partner at ASG and principal of 804 Advisory; and Tyler Norris, doctoral student, Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment The US Secretary of Energy has told federal regulators to rewrite how large electricity loads connect to the grid. What does the proposal actually do, and would it work?
  16. Steel For Fuel · 8 Oct 2025 Fusion, and other fusion-level bets: Part I by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Is fusion actually worth a civilizational bet, given that fission already delivers most of what fusion promises?
  17. Catalyst · 17 Jul 2025 Five big questions emerging from the OBBB with Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research, Energy Impact Partners The One Big Beautiful Bill has passed and rewrites much of the Inflation Reduction Act. What are the open questions it leaves, sector by sector?
  18. Catalyst · 10 Jul 2025 Tumult in residential solar with Julien Dumoulin-Smith, head of power, utilities and clean energy equity research, Jefferies The One Big Beautiful Bill phases out residential solar’s tax credits. What does that do to an industry that was already in serious trouble before it passed?
  19. Steel For Fuel · 7 Jul 2025 The EV revolution will NOT be subsidized by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners If the United States withdraws its electric-vehicle subsidies and mandates, does the transition to electric cars stall?
  20. Catalyst · 3 Jul 2025 Fresh intel from state utility regulatory filings with Nat Bullard, co-founder, Halcyon What do state utility regulatory filings actually reveal right now about how utilities are absorbing data center load, and about where costs are heading?
  21. Catalyst · 29 May 2025 How geothermal gets built with Carl Hoiland, co-founder and CEO, Zanskar What does it actually take to find and develop a geothermal project, and why is the process finally getting faster?
  22. Catalyst · 22 May 2025 What to make of Trump’s deep-sea minerals push with Hans Smit, president and CEO, Ocean Minerals What does the Trump administration’s executive order on deep-sea mining actually change?
  23. Catalyst · 17 Apr 2025 Serving data center load with carbon capture with Julio Friedmann, chief scientist, Carbon Direct Hyperscalers are driving a large gas buildout while holding real decarbonization commitments. Can carbon capture square that circle, or is “capture ready” the same empty promise “hydrogen ready” turned out to be?
  24. Steel For Fuel · 17 Apr 2025 Steel for Fuel, Tariffs for Steel by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners How much do American steel tariffs burden the energy transition?
  25. Catalyst · 27 Feb 2025 Cultivated meat industry faces ‘trough of disillusionment’ with Isha Datar, executive director, New Harvest A decade of venture-funded companies later, why is there still no cultivated meat on the shelf, and what would actually change that?
  26. Catalyst · 6 Jan 2025 Lithium’s wild ride with Ernest Scheyder, senior correspondent, Reuters, and author of The War Below Lithium prices rose steeply and then crashed. What actually caused each half of that, and what decides where the market goes next?
  27. Catalyst · 19 Dec 2024 Scaling low-carbon products with book and claim systems with Adam Klauber, vice president of sustainability and digital supply chain, World Energy Low-carbon fuels and materials get made where the inputs are cheapest, and the buyers willing to pay a premium are somewhere else. Can book and claim bridge that gap without repeating the mistakes of renewable energy credits?
  28. Steel For Fuel · 4 Nov 2024 Why clean energy policy is probably more robust than you think by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Is US clean energy policy as easy to unwind as an election result suggests?
  29. Steel For Fuel · 4 Sep 2024 Where have all the transmission lines gone? by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners With new US transmission stalled, how much can technology make up the difference?
  30. Catalyst · 29 Aug 2024 Why are we still flaring gas? with Tomás de Oliveira Bredariol, energy and environmental policy analyst focused on methane, International Energy Agency (IEA) Natural gas is one of the most heavily traded commodities on earth, so why do oil producers still burn about 150 billion cubic meters of it a year at the wellhead instead of selling it?
  31. Catalyst · 15 Aug 2024 The cost of nuclear with Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director, Good Energy Collective Why does a nuclear reactor cost roughly four times as much to build in the United States as in South Korea, and what would actually make American nuclear cheap?
  32. Catalyst · 9 Aug 2024 Understanding the transmission bottleneck with Rob Gramlich, founder and president, Grid Strategies The United States has nearly stopped building transmission at exactly the moment it needs far more of it. What is actually blocking it, and is it fixable?
  33. Steel For Fuel · 1 Aug 2024 Locals Against Renewables by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners How much do local restrictions matter, against everything else slowing renewables down?
  34. Catalyst · 12 Jul 2024 Decarbonizing the high seas with Lynn Loo, CEO, Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation What will ocean-going ships burn instead of fuel oil, and why has shipping not converged on a single answer the way aviation has?
  35. Catalyst · 2 May 2024 CO2 utilization with Julio Friedmann, chief scientist, Carbon Direct If we end up capturing billions of tons of carbon dioxide a year, what should we actually do with it?
  36. Catalyst · 14 Mar 2024 Climate tech’s tough year in the public markets with Shanu Mathew, portfolio manager and research analyst, Lazard Almost every climate tech market kept growing through 2023, so why did climate tech stocks fall so far behind the broader market?
  37. Catalyst · 6 Mar 2024 Shopify’s head of sustainability on the realities of carbon removal with Stacy Kauk, head of sustainability, Shopify What does it look like to be one of the first corporate buyers of durable carbon removal, and what does three and a half years of it teach you?
  38. Catalyst · 26 Feb 2024 Understanding the electric transformer shortage with Tim Mills, CEO, ERMCO Why did lead times for distribution transformers stay at one to two years long after the rest of the post-COVID supply chains cleared?
  39. Catalyst · 13 Feb 2024 2024 trends: batteries, tax credits, and the cost of capital with Nat Bullard, independent climate tech analyst and writer, formerly chief content officer at BloombergNEF What do the 2023 data actually say about how decarbonization is going, and where have the binding constraints moved?
  40. Catalyst · 1 Feb 2024 What’s really happening in the US EV market? with Corey Cantor, senior associate and EV analyst, BloombergNEF Mainstream coverage says the US electric vehicle market is losing momentum while sales are growing fast. Which is it, and what is actually going on?
  41. Catalyst · 29 Jan 2024 Tech solutions for solving the cow burp problem with Charles Brooke, program manager for enteric methane, Spark Climate Solutions Can technology actually stop cows from burping methane, and how much of the problem can it realistically reach?
  42. Catalyst · 23 Jan 2024 The pitfalls of sourcing biomass for carbon removal with Dr. Bodie Cabiyo, senior forest scientist, Carbon Direct If we are going to use plants to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, where should the biomass come from, and how would anyone know whether a given batch is actually doing good?
  43. Catalyst · 11 Jan 2024 2023 climate tech venture investment trends with Kim Zou, co-founder and CEO, Sightline Climate Climate tech venture funding fell about 30% in 2023. What did that drop actually measure?
  44. Catalyst · 21 Dec 2023 Financing first-of-a-kind climate assets with David Yeh, climatetech investor and debt provider, most recently CIBC; previously the White House, the DOE Loan Programs Office and Generation Investment Management Why is financing the first commercial plant for a new climate technology so hard, and how do the ones that get built actually get paid for?
  45. Catalyst · 7 Dec 2023 Update: What the new Treasury rules mean for EV supply chains with Sam Jaffe, senior director of business development, Addionics Now that Treasury has defined what counts as a “foreign entity of concern,” can an electric vehicle built on today’s battery supply chain still qualify for the $7,500 tax credit?
  46. Catalyst · 27 Oct 2023 The market for microgrids with Tim Hade, co-founder and chief development officer, Scale Microgrids The tailwinds behind microgrids have been building for years. Is the market actually inflecting, and if not, what is holding it back?
  47. Catalyst · 12 Oct 2023 How has US industrial policy impacted climatetech investment? with Trevor Houser, partner, Rhodium Group A year after the Inflation Reduction Act, has US industrial policy actually moved money into clean energy, or is it still mostly announcements?
  48. Steel For Fuel · 1 Oct 2023 What will we do with all the clean hydrogen? by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Governments have committed enormous sums to producing clean hydrogen. Who is going to consume it, and for what?
  49. Steel For Fuel · 31 Mar 2023 The ten biggest questions in energy & climate tech, Question 1 by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Will the United States clear the path for a lot more electric transmission?
  50. Steel For Fuel · 31 Mar 2023 When will we get serious about nuclear? (or something ‘nuclear-esque’?) by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners When will the world get serious about building nuclear power, and does the resource that fills that gap have to be nuclear?
  51. Catalyst · 17 Nov 2022 Fixing cement’s carbon problem with Leah Ellis, co-founder and CEO, Sublime Systems Cement releases carbon dioxide twice over, once from the fuel and once from the rock itself. Which of the proposed fixes actually gets both to zero?