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This week, we have a drop-in episode from our new podcast at Latitude Media: Political Climate.
Since the Inflation Reduction Act became law in August 2022, we’ve asked ourselves a big question: could the government and the private sector actually get this sprawling set of climate programs up and running?
So far, many would answer “yes.” The IRA has already created over 170,000 jobs and supported $110 billion in new clean energy manufacturing – with a majority of that investment headed to conservative-leaning states.
Now, as we head toward November’s presidential election, many Americans are wondering whether a second Trump Administration could unravel much of the work that’s been done.
In the first episode of the new season of Political Climate, hosts Julia Pyper, Brandon Hurlbut and Emily Domenech take stock of the IRA: they discuss how it’s been received politically, the roadblocks facing implementation, and look toward the different scenarios that could unfold after the election.
The show wraps up with our brand-new segment, “The Mark-up.” 
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AI is suddenly in use everywhere – and it’s headed for the power sector. 
New research from Latitude Intelligence and Indigo Advisory Group shows a coming wave of AI integration, inside and outside of utilities. 
Distributed energy companies are increasingly integrating AI into their products, and many power companies are building teams to take advantage of automation for operational efficiency and grid monitoring. 
But adoption will be uneven – and an autonomous superbrain for the electric grid may never fully materialize. 
In this episode, we’ll break down the pathways for AI on the electric grid, and test the market knowledge of a few leaders in this space.
We’re joined by David Groarke, who led the research for Latitude Intelligence on AI adoption; Sadia Raveendran, VP of industry solutions at Uplight; and Apoorv Bhargava, CEO and co-founder of WeaveGrid.
We’ll look at the influx of EVs, the rise of virtual power plants, and the growth in peak demand and ask: where is artificial intelligence and machine learning helping?
Are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? Join us for our upcoming Transition-AI event featuring three experts with a range of views on how to address the energy needs of hyperscale computing, driven by artificial intelligence. Don’t miss this live, virtual event on May 8.

John O’Donnell co-founded and ran two solar thermal companies. He watched as the technology shifted from being the most promising utility-scale solar technology, to getting out-competed by photovoltaics everywhere.
But he stayed passionate about heat. Today, he’s CEO of Rondo Energy, which makes a “heat battery” for industrial applications using bricks, heating coils, and cheap, intermittent renewables.
And that cheap PV that made solar thermal so difficult is now a critical input for decarbonizing factories and processing plants.
John distills his decade and a half in the solar thermal business to a simple lesson: don't be too innovative.
In this episode, we talk with John O’Donnell about the different methods for decarbonizing industrial heat, the use cases for heat batteries, and lessons learned from his days in solar thermal. 
Are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? Join us for our upcoming Transition-AI event featuring three experts with a range of views on how to address the energy needs of hyperscale computing, driven by artificial intelligence. Don’t miss this live, virtual event on May 8.

Mark Gurman has been covering Apple since 2009. His reporting career is full of scoops about new products or strategic decisions from inside the company. 
His latest scoop in February: Apple is finally shutting down its efforts to build an autonomous electric car.
Apple first started exploring an electric car in 2014. At that point, cars had already become computers on wheels, Tesla was scaling mass-market production, and vehicle autonomy was the hottest thing in the tech industry.
“It made sense that Apple, which has a massive prowess in manufacturing, an incredible design ethos and a high standard for safety…would try to take a crack at that market,” said Gurman, a chief correspondent at Bloomberg.
But after a decade of internal disputes, redesigns, and leadership changes, Apple is officially moving on from cars.
“This was a clear admission of failure and admission of a need to disperse some of the resources from that program to other projects at the company,” explained Gurman.
In March, Gurman co-authored a piece detailing exactly what happened over the last 10 years of secretive work. This week, we talk with him about the vision, the technological challenges, and ask: what if Apple had just acquired Tesla from the start?
This episode is brought to you by The Big Switch. In a new 5-episode season, we’re digging into the ways batteries are made and asking: what gets mined, traded, and consumed on the road to decarbonization? Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.

The US green hydrogen industry is at a critical juncture. 
After months of input and debate, the government put out draft rules for tax credits at the end of last year – setting strict requirements for matching new, local renewables to hydrogen production.
It was hailed by many as a really important step for ensuring that green hydrogen actually lives up to its name. But across the industry, the reaction has been mixed – even among those who want to make the industry as clean as possible. 
Maeve Allsup, one of our reporters at Latitude Media, started asking around the industry: how are these rules impacting projects?
This week, we have a crossover episode with The Latitude, a podcast that brings you stories from our journalists and columnists reporting at the commercial edge of energy tech, markets, and deals. Editor Lisa Martine Jenkins presents two features from the pages of Latitude Media on how the US green hydrogen industry is responding to new rules and canceling some projects.
Like what you hear? For more of Latitude Media’s coverage of the frontiers of clean energy, sign up for our newsletter.
This episode is brought to you by The Big Switch. In a new 5-episode season, we’re digging into the ways batteries are made and asking: what gets mined, traded, and consumed on the road to decarbonization? Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.

There are many forces that could hold back AI in the power system: computing infrastructure, power availability, regulation, and corporate inertia.
The biggest one? Good data. 
Utilities and grid operators are awash in data. But getting access to it – or making sense of it – is very difficult. 
For a better understanding of how to change that, we turn to someone who spends a lot of his time in the so-called data cloud: Tititaan Palazzi, the head of power and utilities at Snowflake.
“Data naturally ends up in different boxes, in different silos. And when you then want to ask questions of the data, it becomes really hard. You can't ask questions across the enterprise,” he explained.
In 2018, Palazzi co-founded Myst AI with Pieter Verhoeven, an engineer who built critical demand response applications for the Nest Thermostat. Myst was focused on AI-driven time-series forecasting for the grid. 
“In the energy industry, there is a lot of time-series data coming from the grid. At the same time, using AI for forecasting is quite challenging because every time you need to create a new prediction, you need to have the latest data. And so from an engineering perspective, it was quite complicated to do,” said Palazzi.
Palazzi and Verhoeven arrived at Snowflake after Myst was acquired by the company last year. 
This week, we feature a conversation with Snowflake's Titiaan Palazzi on busting data silos, some early wins for AI in the power sector, and what phase of the transition we're in. 
This episode is brought to you by The Big Switch. In a new 5-episode season, we’re digging into the ways batteries are made and asking: what gets mined, traded, and consumed on the road to decarbonization? Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.