Open Circuit

Latitude Media
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The energy transition, decoded. Every week, three industry veterans explore the tech breakthroughs, market shakeups, and policy shifts that are driving the biggest industrial transformation in history.

  1. -4 J

    Trump’s offshore wind war shakes investors

    On his first day in office, Trump laid out his wind policy in one simple sentence: “We aren’t going to do the wind thing.”  With stop-work orders, red tape, and wild claims about whale-killing electromagnetic fields, the White House has stepped up its war on wind. The flashpoint is Ørsted’s $5 billion Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island, which was weeks from delivering 700 megawatts of clean power to New England, and now frozen by federal order. The threat against the project is more than a local fight: it signals that even fully permitted, nearly finished clean energy assets can be derailed for political leverage.  Analysts warn that this is sending shock waves through the entire energy sector, raising the cost of capital for everything from solar farms to advanced nuclear. In this week’s Open Circuit, we unpack the wider impacts. What does it mean when federal approvals don’t hold? And can states, governors, and utilities step in to keep projects alive when Washington is trying to kill them? Plus, we look at the split story for clean energy jobs. We’ve seen a fresh round of layoffs, bankruptcies and canceled projects, even as the government projects tens of thousands of new renewable and battery jobs by 2030. What is the long-term picture for employment? We’ll end with a look at Amory Lovins’ new piece on nuclear, where he argues the AI boom won’t rescue reactors from their economic flaws. Is the current demand picture enough to revitalize the U.S. nuclear industry? With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026 . Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Want your clean energy brand to stand out in a crowded market? Work with Latitude Studios, our in-house agency that provides content creation and marketing services for brands at the frontier of the energy transition. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

    53 min

  2. 5 SEPT.

    JPMorgan’s climate scientist thinks differently about risk

    In 2004, Dr. Sarah Kapnick was a young banking analyst at Goldman Sachs when she spotted a blind spot: no one was helping clients understand climate risk. Two decades later, she’s the Global Head of Climate Advisory at JPMorgan, turning climate science into boardroom strategy. Kapnick’s career path — from Wall Street, to NOAA’s chief scientist, and back to finance — mirrors the way markets are evolving: from ignoring climate risk, to struggling with it, to finally beginning to price it. Without adaptation, large companies could face $1.2 trillion in annual climate-related costs by the 2050s; utilities alone could see $244 billion in yearly losses. But adaptation isn’t just about avoiding losses — it’s also a chance to seize opportunities.  Kapnick calls it climate intuition: the ability to think about climate risk the way we think about interest rates or labor costs. In this episode, we dig into what that intuition looks like in practice. From infrastructure investors getting serious about resilience to consumer brands redesigning products, is climate finally becoming a normal part of doing business? Plus, we also look at the deep data gap. Without strong regulation, will companies ever disclose or understand enough of their risks? And with government climate monitoring under threat, how will the private sector step in? Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

    53 min

  3. 29 AOÛT

    Grab bag: the affordability crisis, a VPP tipping point, and solar’s moment

    This week, we’re doing something a little different: we’re turning to Jigar’s social media feeds and listener questions to guide our conversation on the latest news in clean energy. First, we tackle the affordability crisis. President Trump recently posted on Truth Social calling renewables "the scam of the century" and blaming them for rising prices. We look at how his policies are making the crisis worse, and why Trump now owns the problem. Then, we look at how VPPs are hitting a tipping point, explaining how companies in the space are now selling "pain medication" instead of "vitamin pills." We also look at some big stories in solar. New tax guidance is making utility-scale harder to finance, but it gives small systems under 1.5 MW a safe harbor. Could that unlock more commercial rooftop capacity? Plus, we look at Pakistan’s DIY solar revolution, and the barriers to $2/watt solar. Finally, we talk about building real political power. Jigar outlines an idea for creating a community trust for the clean energy industry that will strengthen local connections and increase the industry’s clout. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

    1 h

  4. 20 AOÛT

    The Latitude stage: How AI changes our digital energy footprint

    We're witnessing a profound shift from discrete AI tools to always-on AI companions — systems that provide constant feedback, conversation, and support. Sound familiar? It's the 2013 movie "Her" becoming reality.  In this episode of Open Circuit, we have a conversation with MIT’s Vijay Gadepally from our Transition-AI conference about how the spread of artificial intelligence is reshaping our digital energy footprint.  As a senior scientist at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and CTO of cloud computing company Radium Cloud, Gadepally has an inside view on the energy intensity of reasoning models, AI agents, and chatbots. He details how simple tasks are now becoming energy-intensive computing events. Gadepally also explains how operations per watt have improved dramatically, why better software can dramatically reduce emissions, and what it will take for computing innovations to keep pace with our growing appetite for AI. Registration is now open for the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas next January. Power Resilience Forum 2026 is the premier event on grid resiliency, bringing together leaders from across the power sector to address the new realities of planning and operating the grid in an era of extreme weather and wildfires. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

    35 min

  5. 13 AOÛT

    The Latitude stage: Solving the AI load growth puzzle

    In the last two quarters, capital spending on AI has blown past all U.S. consumer spending. Investments in AI infrastructure have already eclipsed the telecom and dot-com booms. The top tech companies are pouring so much money into computing power that they may be single-handedly propping up an economy wobbling under chaotic tariff policy. Gigawatts of new data center requests are flooding utility interconnection queues. And while the numbers are big, the uncertainty is even bigger. Which projects are real? Which are just phantom projects? And how do you plan a grid for a future where half of all new U.S. load could come from data centers by the end of the decade? In this episode, recorded live at Latitude Media’s Transition-AI conference in Boston, Stephen Lacey talks with two experts watching the boom from different angles: Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies; and Anuja Ratnayake, an emerging technologies executive at the Electric Power Research Institute.They break down the scale of the AI-driven demand surge, the challenges of forecasting in a speculative market, and the implications for utility planning. Registration is now open for the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas next January. Power Resilience Forum 2026 is the premier event on grid resiliency, bringing together leaders from across the power sector to address the new realities of planning and operating the grid in an era of extreme weather and wildfires. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

    39 min

  6. 1 AOÛT

    Is America giving up on clean energy manufacturing?

    Over the last four years, the U.S. clean energy manufacturing sector saw a historic boom. Factory construction doubled, foreign firms opened production in dozens of states, and federal policy spurred over $150 billion in manufacturing plans. But a swirl of conflicting policies — from chaotic tariff threats to complex foreign sourcing rules — is freezing planned investments, spooking some manufacturers, and prompting some firms to halt growth plans. Core incentives like the 45X manufacturing tax credit remain intact. But new sourcing regulations are complicating those incentives. In this episode of Open Circuit, MJ Shiao, VP of supply chain and manufacturing at the American Clean Power Association, breaks down the recalibration now underway for companies making equipment in the U.S. We explore the rise and stall of the manufacturing boom, dig into ACP’s latest data on where facilities are being built, and unpack the cascading uncertainty created by new FEOC rules and tariffs. We also ask whether the U.S. can rebalance its industrial strategy to move beyond final assembly and build a more resilient, upstream supply chain.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

    1 h 1 min

  7. 29 JUIL.

    The great divergence: Can the grid catch up to transportation innovation? [partner content]

    Why can your phone instantly reroute you around traffic, but your utility can't tell you when to charge your car for maximum savings? Why can Uber optimize thousands of drivers in real-time, while the electrical grid struggles to optimize distributed resources? Both transportation and electricity systems emerged during the Victorian era with remarkably similar infrastructure: central hubs connected by sprawling networks. Train stations and power plants. Main lines and transmission lines. Local roads and distribution networks. But over the next century and a half, these parallel systems took radically different paths. Transportation embraced real-time telemetry, dynamic pricing, and consumer-centric innovation. But electricity remained fundamentally unchanged — still moving electrons through the same basic infrastructure with minimal visibility into what's happening at the distribution level. Devrim Celal, chief flexibility and marketing officer at Kraken, has been studying this divergence. And he believes we're finally at a point where electricity systems can catch up. "We've just left the Victorian era and we've got a long way to go," says Celal. "But we're seeing incredible results that consumers are willing to participate." In this episode, produced in partnership with Kraken, Stephen Lacey talks with Devrim about why utilities are finally ready to embrace the same consumer-centric innovation that transformed transportation decades ago. The conversation reveals how historical innovation patterns in transportation offer a roadmap for electricity's next phase — and why the convergence of these systems through electric vehicles might finally force the grid into the modern era. This is a partner episode, brought to you by Kraken.  Kraken removes the outdated, siloed tech that's holding back most utilities. Their unified operating system streamlines and enhances operations, meaning happier teams and happier customers for a fraction of the cost. Join leading utilities across the globe and redefine the sector with Kraken. Go to kraken.tech to learn more.

    28 min

  8. 25 JUIL.

    A post-OBBB market recalibration

    As America faces a surge in electricity demand, the federal government is working hard to slow the very resources needed to meet it. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is expected to slash clean energy deployment by as much as 60% over the next decade — bringing back hard tax credit sunsets, introducing tight construction deadlines, and imposing strict foreign entity restrictions.  Meanwhile, a DOE reliability report warns of a 100-fold increase in blackout risk in high-renewables scenarios. And a new permitting order now puts decisions on fencing, road construction, and land grading under the direct authority of the Interior Secretary. It’s a moment of cognitive dissonance in Washington, as policymakers talk about building energy faster, while quietly dismantling the tools to do so. In this episode of Open Circuit, we’re joined by Costa Samaras, director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon and former White House climate and energy advisor, to make sense of the moment. We unpack the contradictions at the heart of the GOP’s energy agenda, explain why the post-IRA tax landscape is still favorable for some sectors, and explore how the politics of permitting could shape developer decisions for years to come. Later in the episode, we dive into the DOE's blackout modeling, and explain why the report’s assumptions are so misaligned with the on-the-ground reality. Finally, Costa lays out his vision for a Grid New Deal, explaining why AI fast lanes, public investment, and smarter grid interconnection rules are essential to meeting this demand surge with clean energy. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Learn more about 38 North Solutions’ Policy Pulse, providing highly curated, actionable snapshots of the political developments shaping the clean tech landscape. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

    1 h 2 min
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The energy transition, decoded. Every week, three industry veterans explore the tech breakthroughs, market shakeups, and policy shifts that are driving the biggest industrial transformation in history.

Informations

  • Création
    Latitude Media
  • Années d’activité
    2 k
  • Épisodes
    31
  • Copyright
    © Latitude Media
  • Site web de l’émission
    Open Circuit

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