This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe

Jane Flegal has worked inside philanthropy at the Hewlett Foundation, industrial emissions policy at the Biden White House, and carbon-removal market development at Frontier; she's now a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute, writing some of the smartest climate policy analysis around. We cover a lot of ground: industrial policy versus market approaches, what the IRA got right and wrong, philanthropy's proper role, data centers and the case for an infrastructure fund, and behind-the-meter gas, among other things. This is a long one, and spicy!

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

03:11 – Flegal's thesis: building a clean grid fast enough to power growth

06:29 – Why she rejects degrowth

09:27 – The Roosevelt essay: climate as more than a market failure

13:30 – Why clean energy underuses its political muscle

15:24 – Industrial policy and the green spiral theory of change

20:40 – Was IRA the right approach?

22:12 – Lily Bermel's paper and the fight over what survived

23:21 – What she would have done differently under IRA

30:11 – Philanthropy, Silicon Valley, and what government is for

33:29 – The epistemic crisis inside environmental NGOs

39:09 – The abundance movement and what each faction misses

44:16 – What establishment Democrats get wrong on climate

46:06 – Why issue polling misleads

50:34 – Republicans and the Cold War analogy

52:47 – Data centers and the American Grid Infrastructure Fund

59:13 – Affordability politics and who pays for the grid

1:08:14 – Emissions, behind-the-meter gas, and flexible load

1:13:57 – The clean firm debate: storage plus transmission?

1:20:14 – Capacity markets, ERCOT, and the case for planning

1:24:32 – Utility incentives, public power, and affordability fixes

1:35:55 – Permitting reform and the land footprint asymmetry

1:41:05 – NEPA reform and the political window

1:48:21 – Where fresh policy thinking comes from