Energy Empire

Energy Empire
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Welcome to the Age of Energy Abundance A once-in-a-generation shift is underway in how the world is powered. Across the United States, clean energy now makes up more than 90% of new electricity added to the grid — not because of politics or ideology, but because these technologies simply work better. They’re cheaper to build, faster to deploy, and easier to scale than anything that came before. The technology is ready. Now the race is on to build it…everywhere. Energy Empire is a podcast about the people and ideas driving this transformation. We explore how abundant, affordable energy is reshaping the global economy, creating new industries, and unlocking what may be the greatest wealth-creation opportunity of our generation. Hosted by Jigar Shah — TIME100 honoree, serial entrepreneur, investor, and former U.S. Department of Energy leader — the show pulls back the curtain on the decisions, innovations, and power struggles shaping the future of energy. Whether you’re curious about where the economy is headed, how energy affects your daily life, or who’s really building the future behind the scenes, Energy Empire is your guide to what comes next.

  1. 2 days ago

    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 over $4 a gallon, and Washington is quietly running its oil reserve the way the Federal Reserve runs interest rates. James Gutman is the co-author of The New Joule Order, and the newly launched Substack Arcs & Angles. This is his fifth time on Energy Empire and his darkest and sharpest appearance yet. In this episode: "Nobody actually puts crude oil into their car": the widest refining margins ever recorded, and why they, not the price of oil, set what you pay at the pump The Justice Department is investigating price gouging. What James would say under subpoena. "You can't print molecules": America's central bank of oil, and the catch when the vault runs low China cut imports by 5.5 million barrels a day without touching its strategic reserve Europe's rearmament bill runs as high as €14 trillion, and "the best friend for Team Green is the guy in the uniform" The question nobody asked in four previous episodes: what does James Gutman get wrong? Plus Ask Jigar: the solar super PAC that just beat a Trump endorsement, and the cleaner backup power hiding inside every hospital's budget. Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas James Gutman's Substack: https://jgutman.substack.com/ Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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

  2. 4 days ago ·  Bonus

    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 America gets onto the grid. Grid 2.0 is a voluntary open protocol standard for how new electricity resources connect. It is modeled on TCP/IP, the shared rules that let the internet scale for decades without anyone approving each new connection. New digital load checks available capacity before activating. If capacity is available, load runs normally. If the grid is constrained, load queues proportionally and automatically, with no phone calls and no administrative intervention. For the vast majority of hours nothing changes. The protocol only matters during peak. And a data center already runs sophisticated workload schedulers, so adding grid capacity as one more input is a software integration. The playbook is the one that built the battery storage industry. Find a market that wants lower rates and keep proving it works until the naysayers stop arguing. Phase 0 is shadow mode: run the protocol, track what would have happened, prove the value while changing nothing. Five early adopters is enough to shift the conversation from whether it works to how fast to scale it. This is G2TF Request for Comments #1, in the literal spirit of the Internet Engineering Task Force that built the internet. Read the full paper at g2tf.org. Comment on it and share it with one person who should hear it.

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

  3. 6 Aug

    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 already spinning: a multi-ton steel flywheel in a vacuum, one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2024, now part of a 500-megawatt agreement with PacifiCorp. Nate was a paramedic making $7.14 an hour when he started inventing. Stryker bought his company when he was 29. Then came the Pluralsight IPO, a Christmas tree farm that could make its own power but couldn't store it, and a flywheel equation his sons worked out at home. In this episode: The argument with a utility CEO that redirected the company: "You have no idea what you have."Why a GPU load looks like an EKG, and why a power plant 300 miles away can't keep up with itFrom 33 dispatches a year to 500: how one utility went from teacher to biggest customerThe 33 gigawatts Nate says we could free up tomorrow, without building a single power plantInside GigaOne, where new hires go from $22 an hour to six-figure programming jobs"We're the Sudafed of the grid" Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas Energy Empire Merch: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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

  4. 30 Jul

    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 Solutions, she built the right's most prominent clean energy advocacy group, launched National Clean Energy Week, and got 21 House Republicans on record defending the clean energy tax credits. In June, she and CRES parted ways. Jigar and Jamie talk with Heather about what it actually takes to move a Republican member of Congress, why permitting reform still isn't law, why the tech giants building data centers keep losing to the utilities in Washington despite dwarfing them in market cap, and the bipartisan venture she wants to build next. Along the way: why the repealed credits "were never theirs to begin with," how Chip Roy killed the compromise, the shot clock on utility political power, and the least productive Congress in history. Plus: Jigar and Jamie spend an hour trying to get past a decade of media training and extract the real tea on why she left. Judge for yourself whether they succeed. Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas Energy Empire merch: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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

  5. 23 Jul

    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 sustainable development, joins Jigar and Jamie to make the case that permitting reform is energy's rare bipartisan opening. His answer is the Co-Location Energy Act: a bill that clears the way for solar and wind on top of 18 million acres of existing oil and gas leases, land that's already disturbed, already roaded, already wired. They get into why he sold the same bill as "all of the above energy" to Republicans and carbon reduction to Democrats, what the music industry knows about building superfans that clean energy still doesn't, and why he ran the same play on state land in case Washington stalls. Along the way: buying strangers beers in Colorado bars, 1,000 petition signatures at a 109-degree Phoenix show, and a secret plan Adam asks the hosts not to repeat. Plus: the case that the climate movement shouldn't exist, and a guest appearance from Jamie's daughter. Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/podcast-global-energy-order Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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

  6. 20 Jul

    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 conversation with Jigar, on Volts, was about doing data centers the dumb way. The comments haven't stopped since. For this crossover, Jigar and Deploy Action's Arnab Pal talk with Dave (Jamie listened in and weighs in on the debrief) about why the data center backlash is a trust problem, not a PR problem, and why $130 billion in projects sits blocked when the community benefits that would unblock them cost a rounding error. Along the way: a rare NERC grid alert, the case that "everything is batteries," why gas gets called firm while solar gets called feminine, and what 36 governors' races this fall mean for anyone building anything on the grid. Plus: why Texas gets 19% of its peak from batteries while PJM sits at 0.2%. Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/podcast-global-energy-order Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas Check out our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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

  7. 16 Jul

    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 grid connection. Most people use it every day and never see it. Alicia Waineo became a registered nurse at 19, ran and sold a home healthcare company, then co-founded ANA in 2017. Today the company does roughly $400 million in revenue while cutting its customers' diesel use, and the emissions that come with it, by up to 80%. The solution is simple. Instead of replacing the entire diesel generator with batteries, they added one: the battery carries the whole load, and the engine's only job is recharging it. Jigar and Jamie talk with Alicia about how that idea is spreading through America's rental fleets, why data centers that can't wait for the grid are renting power instead, and how ANA got here on $700,000 of founder cash, reinvested profits, and exactly one outside check, for $50 million. Along the way: 160,000 diesel generators, bridge power that customers want "loudly," and powering the Super Bowl without getting free tickets. Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/podcast-global-energy-order Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas Get your merch: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

    The Nurse Who Built a $400 Million Generator Company

  8. 9 Jul

    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 Google decided it had to own a power company, how the race to build data centers is reshaping the American grid, and what it actually takes to build gigawatt-scale energy next door to small Texas towns. Along the way: why he says his power plants are more stabilizing than a nuclear reactor, the on-air rematch of the LinkedIn argument where Jigar and Sheldon go at it over off-grid data centers, and a rare, candid turn on mental health, leadership, and the strange grief of selling the company he built. Links: Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/podcast-global-energy-order Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas Merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products

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

About

Welcome to the Age of Energy Abundance A once-in-a-generation shift is underway in how the world is powered. Across the United States, clean energy now makes up more than 90% of new electricity added to the grid — not because of politics or ideology, but because these technologies simply work better. They’re cheaper to build, faster to deploy, and easier to scale than anything that came before. The technology is ready. Now the race is on to build it…everywhere. Energy Empire is a podcast about the people and ideas driving this transformation. We explore how abundant, affordable energy is reshaping the global economy, creating new industries, and unlocking what may be the greatest wealth-creation opportunity of our generation. Hosted by Jigar Shah — TIME100 honoree, serial entrepreneur, investor, and former U.S. Department of Energy leader — the show pulls back the curtain on the decisions, innovations, and power struggles shaping the future of energy. Whether you’re curious about where the economy is headed, how energy affects your daily life, or who’s really building the future behind the scenes, Energy Empire is your guide to what comes next.

Information

  • Creator
    Energy Empire
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    40
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Energy Empire
  • Show Website
    Energy Empire

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