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PODCAST

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins

Every week, Heatmap News Executive Editor Robinson Meyer and Princeton University Professor and energy systems expert Jesse Jenkins make sense of the biggest shift of our time -- navigating the energy transition away from fossil fuels. Drawing on their years of experience reporting on and researching climate change and decarbonization, Meyer and Jenkins unpack the most important issues of the week and how the impacts of climate change and efforts to address it are transforming our economy, politics,

news business news

All Episodes

1:01:01

The Biggest Lessons of a Not-So-Great Year for...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/12/03

2025 has been incredibly eventful for decarbonization —and not necessarily in a good way. The return of Donald Trump, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the rise of data centers and artificial intelligence led to more changes for climate policy and the clean energy sector than we’ve seen in years. Some of those we saw coming. Others we really did not.On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse look back at the year’s biggest energy and decarbonization stories and examine what they got right

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56:59

How to Make Your Climate Giving Count, According to...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/11/26

It’s been a tumultuous year for climate politics — and for climate nonprofits. The longtime activist group 350.org suspended its operations in the U.S. (at least temporarily), and Bill Gates, the world’s No. 1 climate funder, declared that the decarbonization movement should make a “strategic pivot” to poverty reduction. How should someone who wants to help the global climate navigate this moment?Our guest has recommendations. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob talks to Dan Stein, the founder

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1:19:13

How Clean Energy Could Prepare for an AI Bubble

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/11/19

The boom in artificial intelligence has become entangled with the clean energy industry over the past 18 months. Tech companies are willing to pay a lot for electricity — especially reliable zero-carbon electricity — and utilities and energy companies have been scrambling to keep up.But is that boom more like a bubble? And if so, what does that mean for the long-term viability of AI companies and data center developers, and for the long-term health of decarbonization?On this week’s Shift Key, we’re

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59:55

The Startup Trying to Put Geothermal Heat Pumps in...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/10/22

Simply operating America’s buildings uses more than a third of the country’s energy. A major chunk of that is temperature control — keeping the indoors cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Heating eats into families’ budgets and burns a tremendous amount of fuel oil and natural gas. But what if we could heat and cool buildings more efficiently, cleanly, and cheaply?On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk to Dulcie Madden, the founder and CEO of Dig Energy, a New Hampshire-based

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1:12:53

How China’s Power Grid Really Works

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/10/08

China announced a new climate commitment under the Paris Agreement at last month’s United Nations General Assembly meeting, pledging to cut its emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035. Many observers were disappointed by the promise, which may not go far enough to forestall 2 degrees Celsius of warming. But the pledge’s conservatism reveals the delicate and shifting politics of China’s grid — and how the country’s central government and its provinces fight over keeping the lights on.On this week’s episode of

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1:01:18

Heatmap’s Reporters Talk About Electricity,...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/10/01

It’s been a busy few weeks for climate and energy. New York Climate Week brought hundreds of events — and thousands of people — to the city to discuss decarbonization and energy policy. The New Jersey governor’s race has raised the salience of electricity rates. And suddenly everyone is talking about energy affordability.On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by his colleagues at Heatmap to discuss some of the biggest topics in energy and climate. What did they take away from New York

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1:12:04

Nobody in the West Knows How to Respond to the...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/09/24

A new stack of electricity technologies — including solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, and power electronics — seem to be displacing fossil fuels across China and the developing world. Are we watching an irresistible technological revolution happen? Or is something weirder going on — something that has far more to do with China’s singular scale and policy goals than physics and economics?Kingsmill Bond argues that a global electrotech revolution has already begun — and that it will soon

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1:07:20

Utility Regulation Really Sucks

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/09/10

Electricity is getting more expensive — and the culprit, in much of the country, is the poles and wires. Since the pandemic, utility spending on the “last mile” part of the power grid has surged, and it seems likely to get worse before it gets better.How can we fix it? Well, we can start by fixing utility regulation.On today’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk about why utility regulation sucks and how to make it better. In Europe and other parts of the world, utilities are better at

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1:07:28

This Is What It’s Like to Run a Power Grid

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/08/20

So far on Shift Key Summer School we’ve covered how electricity gets made and how it gets sold. But none of that matters without the grid, which is how that electricity gets to you, the consumer. Who actually keeps the grid running? And what decisions did they make an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago, five years ago to make sure that it would still be running right this second?This week on Shift Key, Rob and Jesse chat with Mark Rothleder, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the

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1:06:37

How Electricity Markets Work

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/08/13

Most electricity used in America today is sold on a wholesale power market. These markets are one of the most important institutions structuring the modern U.S. energy economy, but they’re also not very well understood, even in climate nerd circles. And after all: How would you even run a market for something that’s used at the second it’s created — and moves at the speed of light?On this week’s episode of Shift Key Summer School, Rob and Jesse talk about how electricity finds a price and how modern

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1:09:08

Trump’s Move to Kill the Clean Air Act’s Climate...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/08/06

The Trump administration has formally declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not dangerous pollutants. If the president gets his way, then the Environmental Protection Agency may soon surrender any ability to regulate heat-trapping pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and factories — in ways that a future Democratic president potentially could not reverse.On this week’s episode of Shift Key, we discuss whether Trump’s EPA gambit will work, the arguments that the

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1:06:03

Why We’re Worried About Electricity Prices

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/07/30

In the next few years, the United States is going to see the fastest growth in electricity demand since the 1970s. And that’s only the beginning of the challenges that our power grid will face. When you step back, virtually every trend facing the power system — such as the coming surge in liquified natural gas exports or President Trump’s repeal of wind and solar tax credits — threatens to constrain the supply of new electricity.On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk about why

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1:10:47

Climate Policy in America: Where We Go From Here

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/07/16

It’s official. On July 4, President Trump signed the Republican reconciliation bill into law, gutting many of the country’s most significant clean energy tax credits. The future of the American solar, wind, battery, and electric vehicle industries looks very different now than it did last year.On this week’s episode of Shift Key, we survey the damage and look for bright spots. What did the law, in its final version, actually repeal, and what did it leave intact? How much could still change as the

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38:41

What Is a Watt?

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/07/02

What is the difference between energy and power? How does the power grid work? And what’s the difference between a megawatt and a megawatt-hour?On this week’s episode, we answer those questions and many, many more. This is the start of a new series: Shift Key Summer School. It’s a series of introductory “lecture conversations” meant to cover the basics of energy and the power grid for listeners of every experience level and background. In less than an hour, we try to get you up to speed on how to

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1:15:46

A New Grand Theory of Why Decarbonization Is So Hard

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/06/11

Why has it been so hard for the world to make progress on climate change over the past 30 years? Maybe it’s because we’ve been thinking about the problem wrong. Academics and economists have often framed climate change as a free-rider or collective action problem, one in which countries must agree not to emit greenhouse gases and abuse the public commons. But maybe the better way to understand climate action is as a fight that generates winners and losers, defined primarily by who owns what.On this

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1:07:43

How the GOP Megabill Would Reshape the U.S. Energy...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/05/21

Republicans are preparing to tear up America’s clean energy tax credits as part of their budget reconciliation megabill. Hollowing out those policies will have sweeping implications for the country’s energy system — it could set back solar, nuclear, and geothermal development; bring less electricity supply onto the grid; and devastate the country’s fledgling electric vehicle supply chain.A new report — written by our own Jesse Jenkins — is all about the real-life consequences of killing the tax

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1:00:02

How BYD Got So Big

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/04/23

In just the past few years, Chinese EV-maker BYD has become the most important car company most Americans have still never heard of. It is China’s biggest private employer, the world’s third most valuable automaker (after Tesla and Toyota), and it’s capable of producing more than 5 million cars a year. It’s also just one of dozens of innovative new Chinese auto companies that are set to transform the global mobility market — regardless of what happens with Trump’s tariffs.On this week’s episode of

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48:30

What Happens to Global Decarbonization in a Trade War?

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/04/16

Donald Trump has implemented what is easily the most chaotic set of American economic policies in recent memory. First, the U.S. declared a trade war on the entire world, imposing breathtaking tariffs on many of the country’s biggest trading partners. He’s paused that effort — but scaled up punitive tariffs on China, launching what would be the 21st century’s biggest global economic realignment without any apparent plan. Now Trump says that more levies are coming on semiconductors and

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49:19

The Least-Noticed Climate Scandal of the Trump...

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/04/02

The Inflation Reduction Act dedicated $27 billion to build a new kind of climate institution in America — a network of national green banks that could lend money to companies, states, schools, churches, and housing developers to build more clean energy and deploy more next-generation energy technology around the country.It was an innovative and untested program. And the Trump administration is desperately trying to block it. Since February, Trump’s criminal justice appointees — led by Ed Martin, the

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1:05:15

What’s Really Holding Back New Data Centers

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins ·

2025/03/26

If you care about decarbonizing the power grid anytime soon, you have to care about data centers. The AI boom and the ongoing growth of the internet have driven a big new cycle of data center construction in the United States, with tech companies trying to buy amounts of electricity comparable to those used by large cities.Peter Freed has seen this up close. As Meta’s former director of energy strategy, he worked on clean energy procurement and data center development from 2014 to 2024. He is now a

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46 results

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