Field notes The Energy Transition for the Rest of Us

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Supply chain costs

25 notes · Catalyst 17 · Critical Capital 2 · Steel For Fuel 6

  1. Critical Capital · 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. Catalyst · 10 Sep 2026 Do data centers really increase electricity prices? with Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research, Energy Impact Partners Are data centers making your electricity bill go up?
  3. Steel For Fuel · 1 Jun 2026 Riding the Electric Supercycle by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners If every input to the power system is getting more expensive at once, why is that the setup for a durable investment opportunity rather than a squeeze?
  4. Critical Capital · 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?
  5. Catalyst · 14 May 2026 Inside the global fertilizer crunch with Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer, StoneX The Strait of Hormuz has been shut for about ten weeks. What is that doing to the global fertilizer market, and when does it turn into a food problem?
  6. Catalyst · 30 Apr 2026 How AI is modernizing EPCs with George Hershman, CEO, SOLV Energy What actually limits how fast a large solar and storage contractor can put projects in the ground, and where does AI change that?
  7. 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?
  8. Catalyst · 12 Mar 2026 AI scaling pathways: On grid, on edge, off grid, off planet with Jake Elder, senior vice president of research and innovation, Energy Impact Partners If demand for compute keeps climbing, which ways of siting and powering data centers can actually scale: large grid-connected sites, small sites at the edge, off-grid sites, or data centers in orbit?
  9. Catalyst · 19 Feb 2026 The rise of grid power electronics with Drew Baglino with Drew Baglino, founder and CEO, Heron Power What changes if the grid’s transformers stop being passive lumps of steel and become controllable power electronics, and why is that finally possible now?
  10. Catalyst · 22 Jan 2026 More 2026 trends: Solar costs, oil oversupply, and the startup slump with Nat Bullard, climate tech analyst and writer; co-founder, Halcyon Once you step away from data centers, what do the data actually say about where energy and decarbonization stood going into 2026?
  11. Catalyst · 11 Dec 2025 Can AI revolutionize EPC? with Alex Modon, co-founder and CEO, Unlimited Industries Big capital projects are chronically late and over budget. Can AI change that, and is engineering even where the leverage is?
  12. Catalyst · 4 Dec 2025 Who benefits from the AI power bottleneck? with Shanu Mathew, senior vice president and portfolio manager-analyst for US sustainable equity, Lazard Everyone in the AI and energy business says power is the bottleneck. Whose interests does that story serve, and how should you discount what you hear?
  13. Catalyst · 26 Jun 2025 GM’s big new battery tech push with Kurt Kelty, vice president of battery, propulsion and sustainability, General Motors General Motors says a manganese-rich cathode chemistry it calls LMR will give it close to high-nickel driving range at lithium iron phosphate cost. What is it, and why should anyone treat this announcement differently from every other battery announcement?
  14. Catalyst · 5 Jun 2025 The gas turbine crunch with Anthony (Tony) Brough, president, Dora Partners Gas turbines are suddenly impossible to get and increasingly expensive. What is actually causing the bottleneck?
  15. 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?
  16. 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?
  17. Steel For Fuel · 7 Apr 2025 The price of power grids by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners What is happening to the price of the physical equipment power grids are built from, and what follows if it stays high?
  18. 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?
  19. Steel For Fuel · 16 Dec 2024 It’s time to build! (light water reactors) by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Should the United States expand nuclear power by repeating the large reactor design it has just finished, or by building small modular reactors?
  20. Catalyst · 10 Oct 2024 Unpacking China’s cheap battery costs with James Frith, principal, Volta Energy Technologies How much cheaper is it really to manufacture battery cells in China than in the West, and what actually explains the gap?
  21. Steel For Fuel · 7 Aug 2024 Batteries all the way down by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners What does a Chinese battery cell price this low mean for everyone else?
  22. Catalyst · 4 Apr 2024 Understanding the growing world of battery recycling with Dan Steingart, chair of the earth and environmental engineering department, Columbia University Battery recycling is technically well understood, so why is it such a hard business, and what would a recycler have to do to make it work?
  23. 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?
  24. 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?
  25. Steel For Fuel · 25 Apr 2023 Will the EV supply chain hold? by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Will the mineral and manufacturing supply chain behind electric vehicles keep up with the demand the energy transition places on it?