Energy Empire

Will Sustainable Aviation Fuel Ever Take Off?

The jet fuel that could replace kerosene is made from used cooking oil. It costs two to six times more, and there isn't enough of it. This week's guest is Lauren Riley,

1 in 50 American Sheep Now Works in the Energy Industry

Sheep are replacing lawnmowers on solar farms across America. They're quieter, cleaner, and in many cases cheaper. More than 113,000 of them now graze over 500 US solar

Why Are AI Companies So Obsessed With Gas?

Amazon is building a 7.65 gigawatt gas plant in the West Texas desert. Microsoft just signed a 20-year gas deal with Chevron, 30 miles away, and Meta, OpenAI, and xAI are

Who Is Jigar Shah? (Part 3): Taking Over the Office He Called "Irredeemable"

On a podcast in 2020, Jigar called the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office "irredeemable" and said it could never be trusted again. A few weeks later, the Biden t

Ask Jigar: Is a $20,000 used EV the cheapest home battery you can buy?

A used EV costs $200 a kilowatt hour. A Powerwall costs $900. In this episode: Unsubsidized rooftop solar at $2,100 a kilowatt, and why Australia does it for half that

Five Months Into the Iran War, China Is Saving Its Oil for the Next One

Five months into the Iran war, the largest supply shock in oil market history has been managed into a strange calm. Exxon just made $14.5 billion in a quarter, gas is ove

Introducing Grid 2.0, the Open Protocol for the American Grid (Bonus episode)

This is a special bonus episode where Jigar sits down with Chris Shelton to launch Grid 2.0. If this gets adopted, it changes how every new data center and battery in Ame

AI Is Breaking the Grid. A Flywheel Could Fix It.

AI data centers make power demand jump in milliseconds. The grid can't keep up, and ratepayers get the bill. Nate Walkingshaw, founder and CEO of Torus, has a fix alread

A Decade as Clean Energy's Republican Whisperer with Heather Reams

For nearly a decade, Heather Reams had one of the toughest jobs in Washington: selling Republicans on clean energy. As president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solu

Adam Met on Permitting Reform, Building Clean Energy Superfans, and Selling Out Madison Square Garden

Sting has the rainforest. Pierce Brosnan has the whales. Adam Met has permitting reform. The AJR pop star, who has more than 5 billion streams on Spotify and a PhD in su

Crossover with Volts: Data Centers Could Win Over Neighbors for Pennies. They'd Rather Fight

Dave Roberts spent years covering energy for Grist and Vox before building Volts into one of the most influential independent energy podcasts in the country. His last con

The Nurse Who Built a $400 Million Generator Company

Every construction site, concert, film set, and hurricane recovery runs on temporary power. So does the Super Bowl, and so do data centers that can't wait years for a gri

Sheldon Kimber on Why Google Paid $4.75 Billion for His Power Company

In March, Google paid $4.75 billion to buy Intersect — the first time a Big Tech giant has bought a clean energy developer. Jigar and Jamie talk with Sheldon about why G

How to Add 300 Gigawatts to the Grid Without Building a Single Power Plant

The hyperscalers are racing to secure power, pouring billions into new plants, nuclear, even fusion. But interconnection queues still run for years. This week's guest can

Jennifer Granholm's Data Center Playbook for Governors

Data centers have become one of the most charged political issues in the country, and it cuts across both parties. Electricity bills are climbing, 36 states are electing

The Costco of Solar — Meet the Man Quietly Cutting the Cost of Clean Energy

Four generations of Daniel Dus's family have worked in American energy. His great-grandfather was a coal-mine engineer who became president of Michigan Tech; his grandfat

Can a Climate Democrat Win a Trump District? — with Rep. Kathy Castor

Kathy Castor has represented Tampa in Congress for 20 years — four of them chairing the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, the policy engine behind the Inflati

Forget Solar Stocks. The Best Solar Returns Are Overseas.

Brazil: 14% returns. South Africa: 9.8%. United States: 7.1%. That's not a typo. Mike Silvestrini has deployed $476 million in solar projects overseas and at home. The US

The Utilities Want $1.4 Trillion. The Hyperscalers Want a Gigawatt. Nobody Did the Math.

Electric utilities are on track to spend $1.4 trillion on the power grid by 2030. Hyperscalers keep asking for gigawatt-scale data centers. Nobody is required to show the

Ask Jigar: Should You Cut the Cord on Your Utility?

Solar on the roof. Battery in the garage. You can run your house yourself now. The question is what that does to the grid we all share. This week on Ask Jigar: what loca