The Energy Markets Podcast

Bryan Lee
  • 5.0 (11)
  • Business
  • Updated Biweekly

Conversations with energy and environmental policy experts exploring the best state and federal policies to effectuate the urgently needed transition to a clean-energy economy at least cost to consumers. Lot's of wonky FERC stuff. State-level utility regulation and politics. Economists. Lawyers. Engineers. Politicians. Government regulators. Advocates. And acronyms. Lots of acronyms. Topical discussions about energy market developments with a focus on regulatory policies that disincentivize the innovation necessary to advance environmental and climate change objectives at least cost to consumers and the economy. Hosted by Bryan Lee, an energy and environmental policy consultant with decades of Washington, D.C.-based experience as a journalist, government official and energy company executive. Lee and invited guests discuss the latest developments at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies, Capitol Hill, as well as happenings at state-level regulatory commissions and legislatures.

  1. 13h ago

    S5E6: The Nuclear Innovation Alliance is riding the crest of a tsunami of new nuclear technology

    The U.S. nuclear industry is enjoying a robust turnaround, largely driven by interest in emerging new nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors. Judi Greenwald, president and CEO of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, talks about the many different innovative technologies developers are pursuing, the administration's strong support both new and traditional nuclear technology and her NGO's efforts to reform burdensome and costly Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing and oversight requirements.  Amid all the rush of developments in new nuclear, the alliance looks forward to a time when new nuclear, like, what happened with variable renewables "will be able to really take off and stand on its own," Greenwald says.  "We do have to go through this process that we do in our country to make sure that it's got the policy support so that we can get through and innovate in the way that we do. So we're very excited," she says. "There's a lot of work to be done, and it's not clear which companies are going to win in the end. We think it'll be more than one because there are so many different use cases and so many different ways towards success. But not all of the companies and technologies that are playing now are going to win out in the end, and that's okay. What matters is that we have a robust portfolio. We're pursuing multiple ideas collectively and individually. It's a bit of a competition as well as a mutually reinforcing game, but it's it's an exciting moment, and we're really glad to be part of it." Support the show

  2. 6d ago

    S5E5: Long-time observer Paul Bledsoe opines on the state of the U.S. and global action on climate disruption

    Despite increasingly catastrophic weather events occurring across the globe, climate change expert Paul Bledsoe is optimistic there is still time to ward off the worst of climate disruption caused by emissions of greenshouse gases, but time is running out. And he sees reducing what he calls "super pollutants," such as methane and HFCs, rather than simply reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, as offering the most efficient appraoch to stemming the worst of the worst when it comes to climate disruption. "If we can just over the next 20 years reduce these super pollutants, begin to reduce CO2, I think we can just stave off the worst," he says. "We can prevent the true catastrophe, but we need to act, and we need to act more urgently." Support the show

  3. Jul 24

    S5E4: Data Center Coalition's Aaron Tinjum discusses the energy and siting challenges the data industry faces in the age of AI

    The data industry is in a land rush to develop new data centers to meet projected demand due to artificial intelligence. Rapidly bringing many new, large data centers online translates into a sharp increase in demand for electricity at a time when consumers and politicians are concerned about rising electricity prices. At the same time, communities and their political representatives are increasingly working to block the siting of data centers in their communities. The industry is attempting to meet "unprecedented demand for the services that are powered by data centers" as the amount of computing time and computer power by users has grown dramatically since the pandemic, says Aaron Tinjum, executive vice president for policy, regulatory, and strategy at the Data Center Coalition. "That's even setting aside any sort of conversation around artificial intelligence, and really a point of emphasis in all of that is that it is homes and it is businesses, it is utilities that are necessitating more data center infrastructure than ever before, and so our members are working to meet that demand." Tinjum sought to push back against the data industry being tarred as a primary cause of increasing electricity prices, noting that there are so many other factors contributing to the recent upsurge in electricity costs, such as generation shortfalls, transmission constraints, and supply chain issues. "Yes, data centers have had an impact on capacity prices, but that can't solely be assigned to data centers when we're talking about things like market design, we're talking about things like price caps, we're talking about accelerated plant retirements, and the interconnection backlogs to connect any new resources that would offset the reduced supply side resources," he says. "This is really infrastructure that our modern economy and daily lives have become dependent upon, and one of the most necessary inputs in meeting that demand is electricity," he notes. "Energy is the single highest operating expenditure for a data center, so they are naturally incentivized to be as efficient as possible in addition to whatever sustainability commitments they may have already in place."  Support the show

  4. Jul 13

    S5E3: Former DOE official William S. Becker discusses the fossil fuel industry 'cartel' that has frustrated climate action

    William S. Becker, the executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project and a former Department of Energy official, discusses the fossil fuel industry "cartel" that has aligned itself with congressional Republicans and the Trump administration to frustrate concerted policies in response to the threat from climate disruption. "It's a huge industry. It's got a tremendous sunk investment," Becker observes. "It's been around for 200 years. It's fighting to keep access to something on the order of, well, tens of trillions of dollars of fossil fuels that are still underground. Science is saying that about two thirds of them have to stay there in order to keep climate change under some bearable level, at some bearable level. So it began late in 1989, the fossil energy industries and companies formed a coalition to begin resisting climate science and discrediting it, and we've been at this ever since." Support the show

  5. Jul 2

    S5E2: Think climate change is a hoax? Ask the insurance industry

    The Insurance Information Institute's Chief Economist, Michel Leonard, discusses how the insurance industry is contending with increasingly intense and more frequent extreme weather events that are driving up insurance costs for consumers. While there are a number of factors driving cost increases for insurance, such as inflation, there's no doubt that extreme events driven by human-caused climate disruption is a principal factor, Leonard says. Climate is the one of most critical issues affecting the insurance industry, he says. "It's the make or break of our industry." Support the show

  6. Jun 14

    S5E1: The EMP epilogue season – Electricity Restructuring 101

    Energy Markets Podcast host Bryan Lee explains why he has returned to publishing regular episodes of the podcast after a two-year sabbatical. "I feel compelled to return," Lee says, citing "the looming threat of a retreat from electricity regulatory reforms that have provided billions of dollars in benefits to consumers." Lee also draws on his long career in energy and environmental policy to provide the history of competitive reforms over the past 30 years intended to replace monopoly regulation of electricity prices with market-based pricing.  "While the decades-old model for competitive electricity markets needs to be improved, we shouldn't lose sight of the benefits we've derived – billions in consumer savings and a consistently cleaner electric industry," Lee says. "It would be a tragedy if we returned to monopoly regulation rather than take the steps needed to make the markets work better." Support the show

  7. 04/04/2024

    S4E7: R Street Institute economist Michael Giberson speaks to price trends in electricity markets

    In this episode we continue our consideration of what Bill Massey in our first episode this season called "the battle of the statistics" between monopoly and competition advocates. We talk with Michael Giberson, an economist and senior fellow for energy with the R Street Institute, who notes the importance of taking statistics into proper context when attempting to contrast between monopoly utility regulation and competitive markets – particularly the need to account for the impact of inflati...

  8. 03/20/2024

    S4E6: RESA's Rich Spilky speaks to the 'battle of the statistics' regarding the consumer benefits of retail energy competition

    Since the dawn of retail energy competition a quarter century ago, various factions pro and con have engaged in a "battle of the statistics" (as former FERC Commissioner Bill Massey termed it in Episode 1 of this season) regarding the benefits that consumers – particularly residential customers – obtain from competition in retail electricity service. Mostly, these statistical arguments have centered around price savings that residential consumers may or may not have obtained from having a competitive choice in energy suppliers. In this episode, we hear from Constellation Energy's Rich Spilky, who on behalf of the Retail Energy Supply Association breaks down for us the body of RESA-sponsored work by the late former Illinois utility regulator Phil O'Connor that objectively sought to identify the consumer benefits of customer choice over time, with the price data adjusted for inflation. Spilky assisted O'Connor in these data analyses, which sought to objectively identify which states had effective retail energy competition, and to use federal government statistics to compare the performance of those retail choice states against that of states that retained traditional monopoly price regulation. The results have been compelling. For both studies that Spilky assisted O'Connor in preparing – Restructuring Recharged and The Great Divergence – as well as in the analyses that Spilky has conducted independently since, this objective methodology has shown that electricity consumers in the 14 jurisdictions with effective customer choice have generally experienced downward price trends while their counterparts without choice in monopoly states have generally experienced upward price trends.  The analyses clearly show "there's something good going on in the competitive states, pricewise and cost-containmentwise, that's not happening in the monopoly states," Spilky says.  "I think it's remarkable." Support the show

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

Conversations with energy and environmental policy experts exploring the best state and federal policies to effectuate the urgently needed transition to a clean-energy economy at least cost to consumers. Lot's of wonky FERC stuff. State-level utility regulation and politics. Economists. Lawyers. Engineers. Politicians. Government regulators. Advocates. And acronyms. Lots of acronyms. Topical discussions about energy market developments with a focus on regulatory policies that disincentivize the innovation necessary to advance environmental and climate change objectives at least cost to consumers and the economy. Hosted by Bryan Lee, an energy and environmental policy consultant with decades of Washington, D.C.-based experience as a journalist, government official and energy company executive. Lee and invited guests discuss the latest developments at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies, Capitol Hill, as well as happenings at state-level regulatory commissions and legislatures.

Information

  • Creator
    Bryan Lee
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    70
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Energy Markets Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Energy Markets Podcast

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