Open Circuit

Jaksot

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  Power is caught in AI’s doom loop 15.09.2026 56min

  We are in the middle of a radical political and economic realignment, with electricity infrastructure at the center of it. And this summer, the plot thickened. Power sector reforms are coming in fast and furious, across states, regional markets, and federal regulators. Local resistance reached new heights around the country. And data centers are scrambling politics as we near the midterm elections. Meanwhile, AI models are breaking containment in alarming ways. The leaders of AI labs are openly calling for a slowdown and warning of dire security impacts, even while the rush to release new models and IPO intensifies.  Poll after poll shows Americans are increasingly distrustful and cynical about AI. And tech companies are stepping away from their claims about AI being a climate panacea, while they invest in the biggest gas projects on the planet. The future of power infrastructure is inextricably linked to all these forces. This week, we’re asking: How are they changing the trajectory of how power gets built? And what does responsible data center development actually look like? Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Open Circuit is brought to you by Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, where New Mexico's energy future is shaped. Join industry leaders, policy makers, researchers, and innovators at Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, September 14-16 in Albuquerque. Visit nmwomenlead.org/registration and use promo code CIRCUIT to save 10% on registration. Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  Empowering utility customers with demand flexibility [partner content] 11.09.2026 21min

  As data centers, factories, and electrification push growth to unprecedented heights, customers are looking for greater control over their energy use. But the traditional one-size-fits-all approach falls short for customers wanting to know which energy choices will benefit them most, and how those choices will impact their bills. In this third episode of Bidgely’s four-part series, Stephen Lacey talks with Kirby Brinlee, director of customer experience at Oklahoma Gas & Electric, and Abhay Gupta, CEO at Bidgely. Through their partnership with Bidgely, OG&E learned something surprising about their variable peak pricing program: Customers were shifting their energy use to the wrong hours. Personalized messages and recommendations proved a win-win for the utility and their customers. Flexibility programs became more reliable resources for grid planners, and customers learned how to keep their costs low.  Kirby and Abhay discuss how load growth is reshaping the utility-customer relationship, why personalization matters, and how AI is helping OG&E give more power to customers. OG&E’s experience reveals how AI can unlock more sophisticated demand flexibility by finding the right customers, accurately measuring energy usage, and building stronger customer relationships.  This is a partner episode, brought to you by ⁠Bidgely⁠. This is the third episode in our series with Bidgely exploring how utilities are deploying purpose-built AI to solve their most pressing challenges. Tune in to the other episodes: How APS dove headfirst into AI Turning customer data into grid intelligence
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  Electricity bills are on the ballot 08.09.2026 29min

  Electricity prices have become a central storyline in upcoming U.S. elections. All over the country, Americans are finding it harder to pay their bills, and they’re getting increasingly cynical about utilities and data centers.  While governors are caught in the middle of this voter anger, there’s a group of key decisionmakers that are often missed: the 200 regulators that oversee tens of billions of dollars in utility spending. In this episode, Charles Hua, the founder and executive director of PowerLines, walks through why that gap matters right now.  Utilities requested a record $31 billion in rate increases last year. And PowerLines’ newest research found that utilities are planning $1.4 trillion in capital expenditures by 2030. Hua dissects what is driving that spending, arguing that the real drivers of higher bills predate the data center boom.  Still, the data center effect is real. And state-level regulators are struggling to balance the need for economic development with the massive rate increase requests that utilities are throwing at them.  So how will electricity affordability shape elections? And, most importantly, how will it shape the way we pay for needed grid upgrades? This conversation was recorded live at Latitude Media’s Transition-AI conference. Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and special guest Nate Adams. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, where New Mexico's energy future is shaped. Join industry leaders, policy makers, researchers, and innovators at Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, September 14-16 in Albuquerque. Visit nmwomenlead.org/registration and use promo code CIRCUIT to save 10% on registration. Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  The breakout moment for VPPs [partner content] 28.08.2026 55min

  Virtual power plants are having a moment. Suddenly, this once-niche solution for the power sector is breaking into mainstream discourse. The convergence of sudden load growth, aging infrastructure, extreme weather, and electricity inflation is turning distributed resources into must-deploy assets.  At the state level, VPPs are becoming a go-to tool for making electricity more affordable. They’re championed as one of the only solutions that can open up enough capacity to support load growth over the next three years. But at a moment of historic utility spending, VPPs can still feel like a round peg in a square hole. Utilities and regulators treat them as a novelty, and market rules are not designed to unlock their potential. So what still needs to happen to leverage the true potential of this resource? This week, we have a live episode recorded from Cpower’s GridFuture conference in Jersey City. Stephen is joined by David Visneau, head of demand response and VPPs at NRG Business; Ken Schisler, senior director of growth & policy at NRG; and Mathew Sachs, chief strategy Officer at CPower​ ​. They dive into the unique tailwinds for the market, the regulatory constraints, the state-level policy activity, and some predictions about where we're headed. This episode was produced in partnership with CPower. 
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  Green Blueprint: Form's storage manufacturing breakthrough 21.08.2026 49min

  We're on vacation through the end of August, so this week we’re featuring an episode of The Green Blueprint. Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized energy storage. But inexpensive, multi-day storage will still be critical for backing renewables and decarbonizing the grid.  Form Energy is tackling that challenge with a new class of iron-air batteries. By oxidizing and reducing iron, Form is creating low-cost, multi-day storage that competes directly with natural gas peaker plants.  Mateo Jaramillo, CEO and co-founder of Form Energy, has spent over two decades in the battery industry, including building Tesla’s storage business. At Form, he’s leading the charge to bring these "E-peakers" to utilities across the country. The company recently achieved a major milestone: completing a one-million-square-foot factory on the site of an old steel mill in Weirton, West Virginia. In this episode, Mateo talks with host Lara Pierpoint about the grueling realities of scaling up manufacturing, why they chose to build in West Virginia, using AI to drive material science discovery, and the immense logistical challenges of building physical infrastructure.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, where New Mexico's energy future is shaped. Join industry leaders, policy makers, researchers, and innovators at Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, September 14-16 in Albuquerque. Visit nmwomenlead.org/registration and use promo code CIRCUIT to save 10% on registration. Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  AI needs a different kind of power plant [partner content] 19.08.2026 22min

  Arbor Energy is betting that smaller, modular turbines can solve problems the conventional generation model was never designed for. Arbor Energy was founded with an unusual idea: take technologies from rocket engines and use them to make carbon-negative power plants. Today, the market has radically changed. Demand for turbines is exploding, the supply chain is jammed, and data centers need power on rapid timelines. Suddenly, Arbor’s 3D-printed turbine is a potential answer to the power bottleneck. In this episode, Stephen Lacey talks with Arbor CEO and co-founder Brad Hartwig, a former SpaceX engineer who found his calling in power generation. They explore how Arbor is adapting rocket technologies for power generation, how additive manufacturing could unlock new turbine supply chains, and why the company believes cleaner power solutions are critical for community acceptance. Can rocket engineering help reinvent the way we build power plants? This episode was produced in partnership with Arbor Energy. 
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  Did China outsmart America after the oil shock? 14.08.2026 58min

  After Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, everyone thought prices would hit historic highs. But they didn't. Why? The answer is less about market resiliency, and more about two major government interventions. The U.S. intervened using a central banking model, and China intervened with a top-down government approach. James Gutman, head of research at Abaxx Technologies, joins us this week to discuss how these two interventions influenced global oil flows, and why China emerged as a clear winner. Gutman wrote about the Chinese and American strategies on his substack, Arcs and Angles. We look at how China cut crude oil imports and leaned on a decade of investment in electric vehicles, high-speed rail, and coal-to-liquids to defer demand. As China starts to come back into the market, the country is now operating at a position of strength. We also discuss the U.S. model, which leaned on strategic oil reserves to moderate prices in a way that mirrors central banking. Gutman argues that this “central bank of molecules” model worked, but only for so long. And he worries about how it will get used in the future. Finally, we ask how both of these approaches could get used again in other industries like critical minerals or equipment manufacturing. Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and special guest Nate Adams. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, where New Mexico's energy future is shaped. Join industry leaders, policy makers, researchers, and innovators at Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, September 14-16 in Albuquerque. Visit nmwomenlead.org/registration and use promo code CIRCUIT to save 10% on registration. Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  Data centers have a Texas-sized energy problem 07.08.2026 1t 5min

  The showdown over data centers is taking a new turn. This week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a data center pause in order to audit how they’ll impact water supplies and the power grid. This comes weeks after New York issued a moratorium. Not long ago, Governor Abbott was declaring Texas the center of the AI boom. But with his re-election bid under threat, he’s now responding to the radical shift in anti-data center sentiment. So what will this mean for other states? And more importantly, will states use their pauses to find creative ways to upgrade grids and deploy clean energy? Then, the end of the corporate net-zero era. AI load growth is blowing up climate goals in real time and tech companies are scrambling to explain their emissions increases. Meanwhile, many of the biggest corporate players are walking away from their targets. But could this actually be a good thing for corporate decarbonization? We’ll look at more effective ways for companies to accelerate clean solutions. Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and special guest Nate Adams. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, where New Mexico's energy future is shaped. Join industry leaders, policy makers, researchers, and innovators at Building an Advanced Energy Ecosystem, September 14-16 in Albuquerque. Visit nmwomenlead.org/registration and use promo code CIRCUIT to save 10% on registration. Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  A simple fix that could unlock the heat pump market 31.07.2026 48min

  It's been almost a decade since the “Electrify Everything” movement kicked off. And guess what? We aren't electrifying everything. We're seeing strong growth in electric vehicles, heat pumps, and induction cooktops. But we're still trapped inside a system that makes the electric choice harder to make. And nowhere is that more obvious than with heat pumps.  Every eight seconds in the US, an HVAC contractor installs an air conditioner that has only one mode: cooling. That one decision locks in fossil fuel heating for the next 15 to 20 years. This week, we're joined by Nate Adams, known as the House Whisperer, to unpack the three-part series he wrote for Latitude Media on what's actually holding heat pump adoption back. Nate argues the fix isn't more rebates or bigger subsidies for homeowners. Rather, it's making it easier for upstream players to make and stock two-way ACs. We dig into the emergency replacement trap, the importance of hybrid systems, how heat pumps got politically coded, and why leading with comfort — not climate — is the winning pitch. We also talk about Nate’s immersive, fully electrified Airbnbs. Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and special guest Nate Adams. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey.  Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  Critical Capital: Is this infrastructure's once-in-a-generation moment? 24.07.2026 31min

  This week, we’re presenting an episode of Critical Capital, a new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. We are entering a period of infrastructure development unlike anything we’ve seen in the last century. The infrastructure economy is witnessing a generational redesign and a fundamental reshaping of the physical fabric on which society is built. In this episode, Alfred Johnson is joined by Jessica Bailey, Global Head of Infrastructure at Nuveen, an institutional giant with over $1.4 trillion in assets under management. Jessica directs $40 billion in infrastructure investments and discusses how the collision of the energy transition, digitalization, and aging grid systems is creating an unprecedented investment landscape. Jessica shares her unique journey from climate philanthropy at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to pioneering C-PACE financing. She also explains the financing structures needed to scale domestic manufacturing, why economic realities are beginning to override political gridlock, and why the biggest check on AI growth won't be capital, but could be energy and community pushback. Subscribe to Critical Capital on Apple, Spotify, or any podcast platform.
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  The off-grid data center fantasy 17.07.2026 1t 11min

  A major fault line runs through the data center debate: how many will actually go off-grid? There’s a lot of enthusiasm in Silicon Valley for breaking free from the grid. But even the companies pushing hardest for off-grid projects now admit they want a grid connection eventually. So how much behind-the-meter power will actually get built in the next few years? And what fills it? SemiAnalysis, the influential chip and infrastructure research firm, recently projected over 40 gigawatts of behind-the-meter power at U.S. data centers by 2028, most of it gas turbines, reciprocating engines, and fuel cells. This week, Tim Hade, SVP at Voltus, joins the show to interrogate that forecast. He thinks that timeline is a fantasy, and that the real story for the next three to five years is load flexibility driven by batteries. We dig into the SemiAnalysis numbers, the disagreement over how much headroom the grid has, and whether declining marginal value for batteries undercuts the case for storage. We close with a new framework from Rhodium Group that scores how these choices help or hurt the energy transition.  Read Jigar’s ode to Lorenzo Kristov, mentioned in the show. Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and special guest Tim Hade. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey.  Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  Turning customer data into grid intelligence [partner content] 14.07.2026 23min

  Utilities across the country are increasingly turning to time-of-day rates as electricity demand grows and delivery costs rise. But a harder challenge is giving customers the tools to save money under those new rates. In this second episode of a four-part series with Bidgely, Stephen Lacey talks with Lou DeBrino, Vice President of Customer Operations at PSEG Long Island, and Ted Nielsen, Chief Product Officer at Bidgely. As PSEG Long Island prepared to transition more than 900,000 residential customers onto time-of-day rates, success depended on building trust, improving transparency, and helping customers understand exactly where their energy dollars were going. Lou and Ted explain how appliance-level energy intelligence transformed that effort. What started as a way to explain electric bills evolved into a broader customer engagement platform supporting call center operations, targeted efficiency programs, EV adoption, demand-side management, and long-term grid planning.  Along the way, they discuss why the future of utility AI depends on building stronger relationships between utilities and their customers. Learn more about how Bidgely works with utilities through its UtilityAI platform. This is the second episode in our four-part series with Bidgely exploring how utilities are deploying purpose-built AI to solve their most pressing challenges. Tune in to the other episodes: How APS dove headfirst into AI Empowering utility customers with demand flexibility, with Oklahoma Gas & Electric
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  Plug-in solar meets the grid crisis 10.07.2026 1t 1min

  America turned 250 years old last week. While local leaders were busy organizing parades, re-enactments, and flyovers, grid operators and emergency officials were dealing with something else entirely: a heat dome settled over the eastern U.S.  Nearly 200 million people were under extreme heat warnings, the national parade in Washington was canceled, and PJM, the largest U.S. grid operator, hit a new all-time demand record. The Energy Department issued emergency orders to keep the lights on. And people living next to data centers wondered: how much diesel pollution would they breathe if all the backup generators kicked on at once. This week, we'll look at two energy stories playing out in response: the top-down effort to manage grids stressed by data centers and extreme weather — including the biggest-ever virtual power plant getting built to take the pressure off. We’ll also look at the bottom-up movement of Americans bolting solar panels to their balconies and backyards. The market for plug-in solar has surged in Pakistan and Germany. Will it add up to something meaningful in the U.S.? And could it play a role in virtual power plants? Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. This episode was mixed by Matthew Filler. Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  The new reality for data centers: no easy answers 02.07.2026 34min

  For 20 years, the blueprint for data centers was simple: find some land, get in line for power, and trust that the utility could deliver. Data centers and power infrastructure got built on separate tracks because the grid had room to spare. That model is gone. Today, with long lead times for equipment, multi-year interconnection queues, and the pressure to bring your own generation, it all has to be sequenced together. And on top of it all, public opinion has radically shifted against data centers, adding new risks. In this episode, recorded live at our Transition-AI conference in April, we hear from two executives navigating all of it: Holly Adams, SVP of Energy at Beale Infrastructure, and Ian Black, SVP and Global Head of Energy at Digital Realty. They cover the similarities between renewables and data centers, the changing definition of "powered land," the evolution of large load tariffs, how community opposition has grown, and the hard questions around bringing your own generation that utilities are betting developers won't solve. Get your ticket to Latitude Media’s Flex Summit in Austin, Texas on October 14-15. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. This episode was mixed by Matthew Filler. Open Circuit is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.
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  How APS dove head-first into AI [partner content] 30.06.2026 20min

  AI is about far more than chatbots and copilots. For utilities, the bigger opportunity may be in applying purpose-built models to the operational data from smart meters, customer systems, weather, outages, and grid equipment. In this first episode of a four-part series with Bidgely, Stephen Lacey talks with Venkata Nimmala, Director of Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture at Arizona Public Service, and Karthik Moorthy, Chief Growth Officer at Bidgely. APS initially partnered with Bidgely to solve a highly practical customer-service problem: helping call-center agents explain why a customer’s bill had increased. By using appliance-level energy disaggregation, the utility moved beyond generic explanations to identify the likely drivers of higher usage. But the project soon raised a bigger question. How could the same intelligence support a wider range of planning and operational solutions across the utility? Venkat and Karthik explain how APS began bringing Bidgely’s models closer to the utility’s own data environment, creating a foundation for broader experimentation and deployment.  They discuss data sovereignty, centralized AI governance, the difference between buying a point solution and building deeper capabilities, and why AI transformation is ultimately as much about data and operating models as it is about technology. Learn more about how Bidgely works with utilities through its UtilityAI platform. This is the first episode in our four-part series with Bidgely exploring how utilities are deploying purpose-built AI to solve their most pressing challenges. Tune in to the other episodes: Turning customer data into grid intelligence, with PSEG Long Island Empowering utility customers with demand flexibility, with Oklahoma Gas & Electric
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  Is commercial fusion finally near? 26.06.2026 59min

  For a half century, fusion has been a scientific story playing out in national labs, government research budgets, and peer-reviewed journals. Every so often, a bold claim captures the public's attention, and then leads to disappointment when people realize that limitless energy from the stars is very hard to produce on Earth. But now fusion is evolving into a commercial story. This spring, Commonwealth Fusion Systems became the first fusion company to file a generation interconnection request with PJM. The company has a site in Virginia, customers in Google and Eni, and a timeline that could put power on the grid in the early 2030s. That’s roughly the same window as a conventional power plant built today. The science is far from done, and fusion has burned optimists before. But for the first time, the conversation has shifted from "can this ever work" to "can this work on a timeline that matters for today's grid planning?" This week, we interrogate that timeline with Rick Needham, chief commercial officer at Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. Open Circuit is brought to you by FlexGen, a leader in integrated battery energy storage solutions and energy management software. FlexGen helps owners and operators gain greater visibility and control across complex energy systems to maximize performance. Learn more at www.flexgen.com.
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  SpaceX’s IPO is an energy story 18.06.2026 41min

  Depending on where you sit, SpaceX is either the greatest industrial company of our time, or a CapEx bonfire that requires a lot of imagination to justify. But either way, the company’s public debut tells us something important about this investment moment: the next technology cycle is not asset-light. It is ambitiously physical. SpaceX is now much more than rockets and launchpads. With xAI inside the company, SpaceX is pitching itself as an AI company, an emerging hyperscaler, a satellite broadband network, and eventually a vertically integrated chip manufacturer, solar manufacturer, power developer, and operator of orbital data centers. In this episode, we tackle some of the energy storylines behind SpaceX’s public debut.  We’ll ask what it means for Elon’s energy master plan, the pathway for powering terawatt-scale compute, and whether it presents an opening for other hard tech energy companies coming out of Elon’s orbit. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. This episode was mixed by Matthew Filler. Open Circuit is brought to you by FlexGen, a leader in integrated battery energy storage solutions and energy management software. FlexGen helps owners and operators gain greater visibility and control across complex energy systems to maximize performance. Learn more at www.flexgen.com.
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  America’s electricity rage is here 12.06.2026 49min

  The anger and anxiety over electricity in America is palpable. You can see it in packed utility commission hearings, in protests against companies, and in furious reactions on social media. And you can see it in the polling. Across poll after poll, more people are saying that they can’t afford their bills and they think utilities need to change how they make money. And they are also very cynical about data centers.  So will this be the push utilities need to finally change the way utilities pay for infrastructure? This week, we dig into three indicators. First: 75% of Americans say their home energy costs have gone up, and a quarter of Americans now consider utility bills unaffordable. Second: 86% of California voters said executive pay should be tied to affordability. And third: 71% of Americans would now oppose a data center being built near their home, a 49-point swing in less than a year. Julia Hamm, a partner at Ad Hoc Group, joins us to explore how these economic anxieties may shift the electricity economy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. Open Circuit is brought to you by FlexGen, a leader in integrated battery energy storage solutions and energy management software. FlexGen helps owners and operators gain greater visibility and control across complex energy systems to maximize performance. Learn more at www.flexgen.com.
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  The biggest utility merger in US history? 05.06.2026 1t 1min

  First, it was a power bottleneck. Then a compute bottleneck. Now, as AI agents burn through tokens faster than anyone predicted, we're back in a compute shortage. Meanwhile, it's getting harder than ever to site and build the data centers to alleviate it. This is shaking up who builds the energy infrastructure to serve it, and how it gets built. This week, we’re diving into the biggest utility deal in American history: NextEra’s attempt to buy Dominion. If it happens, it would combine the biggest renewable energy developer in the US with the utility serving the world's largest concentration of data centers.  What does it mean for their power development strategy? We debate the regulatory path, the power mix question, and who actually benefits. Then we turn to an infrastructure debate. Are we entering a new era of distributed, grid-connected data centers that will overshadow the gigawatt-scale campus model?  And we close with a rapid-fire look at some ideas for solving the compute crunch: Home inference hubs, water heaters that serve AI, and wave-powered data centers. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. Open Circuit is brought to you by FlexGen, a leader in integrated battery energy storage solutions and energy management software. FlexGen helps owners and operators gain greater visibility and control across complex energy systems to maximize performance. Learn more at www.flexgen.com.
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  The climate messaging war returns. Does it matter if we can’t build? 29.05.2026 1t 7min

  A familiar debate is reemerging in US politics: is it helpful or damaging to talk about climate change? It broke into the open when the New York Times published an op-ed from Matthew Huber arguing that Democrats should avoid talking about climate change. His case: climate carries far too much political baggage for working class voters that Democrats are trying to win back. It sparked a conversation over whether "climate hushing" is a savvy political strategy or a dangerous concession. This week, we take the debate head-on. Guest co-host Jane Flegal joins us to talk about the latest version of this argument, and whether dropping the climate frame is a smart tactical pivot. Then we turn to a more fundamental problem. Even if we land on the perfect climate frame, it may not matter if the U.S. can't actually build the infrastructure the transition requires. A sweeping new essay in American Affairs argues that both parties have become functionally obstructionist — and that “ideologically portable” obstruction has become a feature of American governance. We close with a look at an opening in philanthropy. Nan Ransohoff published a piece this month arguing that AI company wealth is about to generate up to $100 billion per year in new philanthropic capital. Do the institutions exist to deploy it? And how much might find its way to climate and energy work? Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Jane Flegal. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. Open Circuit is brought to you by FlexGen, a leader in integrated battery energy storage solutions and energy management software. FlexGen helps owners and operators gain greater visibility and control across complex energy systems to maximize performance. Learn more at www.flexgen.com. Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.