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Inside episode 17 of Shift Key.
Transmission has been one of the biggest obstacles of decarbonizing the power grid in America. In the past week, however, the country has taken two big steps toward finally removing it.
Last week, the Department of Energy published a list of 10 high-priority areas for grid development, called National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, designed to help accelerate some of the most annoying aspects of the siting process. Then on Monday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission passed a new rule directing grid planners to take a longer view on what America’s future electricity needs will look like.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk with two special guests — Maria Robinson, who leads the Energy Department’s Grid Deployment Office, and Heatmap reporter Matthew Zeitlin — about what these measures mean for the Biden administration’s climate policy and how soon we might see new power lines get built. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Robinson Meyer: Wow. Okay. So basically, any — so can I just back up for a second? I think, first of all, I just want to go: Wow. So all of, the whole power we’re talking about today is very important. There’s nothing else like it in the federal government. But also, you’re going to have to do a whole NEPA process on it?
Maria Robinson: Yes, so we’re going to have to do a whole NEPA process for each one of these areas that we’re designating for NIETCs. And then the other part of this is that if they access some funding, they’re going to have to do another NEPA process. And if they access backstop siting at a FERC, you may have to do another NEPA process. And I know Congress is investigating a couple of remedies to that.
Jesse Jenkins: So that’s pretty important. Because the goal here is to try to accelerate the development of transmission, which is critical to tap into the best wind and solar resources across the country that can help lower electricity costs and help decarbonize the grid to meet the growing need for electricity. That’s coming from data centers, as listeners have heard here on Shift Key, from electrification of vehicles, hydrogen production, etc. So we’ve got a big pressure to increase the electricity supply in the country. And, you know, the cheapest resources are renewables, but we’ve got to be able to plug them into the grid.
So if this process is going to ... designating these NIETCs and then ultimately getting transmission lines built out within them, with access to federal support for financing and backstop siting authority, is going to play out over a multi-year NEPA process — or several of them — how quickly could we realistically expect to start seeing transmission lines built within some of these corridors?
Maria Robinson: What’s great about the cohort — and this is just our very first cohort of those named national transmission corridors. We anticipate that we’ll open up applications again, maybe as soon as this fall, for another round, as well, depending on how many we move forward with to do full NEPA on. It really depends on our ability to get all of that NEPA done.
But some of these are really ready for prime time. Some of them are just looking for some additional financing. And are looking at construction dates as soon as, say, 2028, 2029, which in the grand scheme of things for transmission is relatively soon.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by…
Watershed's climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
FischTank PR uses its decade-plus experience working in the climate tech space to introduce clients to top-tier journalists at the right time, for the right story. We don’t tire-spin — we take action and understand we are hired to get results. To learn more, visit fischtankpr.com.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
Inside episode 15 of Shift Key.
Tesla is now facing its worst crisis in years. Last week, CEO Elon Musk laid off the automaker’s roughly 500-person Supercharger team and what remained of its policy and new vehicle teams. Before that, it reported its first-quarter financial results — and they were even worse than the lackluster performance that investors were expecting.
Already this year, Tesla has cut around 10% of its employees. Now Musk is promising that it will shift toward becoming an “AI” company. And on Wednesday — after we recorded this episode — Reuters reported that the Justice Department is investigating Tesla for lying about its so-called Full Self Driving software to investors.
Does Tesla, long a stalwart of America’s EV transition, now pose a danger to it? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse discuss the automaker’s turn away from EVs, and why Musk’s decision to lay off the Supercharger team could throw the entire country’s EV transition off track. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: I just want to note one thing you said there, which is the role of the [National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure] funding. So the government funding here required that any recipient of the federal infrastructure funding would be open to multiple automakers’ vehicles. So you could not, Tesla could not have kept its network closed and received any of the federal money.
And so it is interesting to think like, you know: If NEVI hadn’t existed, I’m not sure if Tesla would have made that pivot. So it’s interesting, this is an example of where government funding and requirements can really open up standards and, you know, kind of force change. So maybe it was they thought they had to do it in order to stay competitive, to get a chunk of that federal infrastructure funding. And maybe they would have been better off if they just kept a closed network and ignored the shiny pot of money that the federal government was out there … it’s hard to say, at this point.
Robinson Meyer: There’s a second aspect of this, though, that I think is also confusing, which is basically that if Tesla — over the next year, every American who drives an electric vehicle is going to encounter a Tesla Supercharger for the first time, whether or not they own a Tesla, right? Because they’re, the vehicle they own is going to be integrated into the Tesla network and they’re going to be able to charge.
That is such a sales opportunity for Tesla. Tesla needed to nail that integration, first of all, and execution, because these are not hard customers to convince to buy a Tesla. These are customers who already own an electric vehicle. And so if they’re coming to your Supercharger network, and they’re like, ‘This is an amazing network. This, like, works so much better than any other network. This works better than the chargers that my automaker wants to direct me to that aren’t Tesla, whether they be Electrify America or something else,’ that would have been an incredible marketing and sales opportunity for Tesla to convert drivers who already had chosen to go electric.
There’s not a better market out there. There’s not a more accessible market out there for them than people who already drive an EV and are thinking about their next EV purchase. And so it has now, if nothing else, guaranteed that the next year will feel chaotic. Maybe, through some miracle, the Supercharger network keeps working, and it keeps working pretty well. How they’re going to manage that with no remaining team, I don’t really understand — but let’s say it keeps working pretty well. They’ve really fumbled an opportunity to make Tesla seem like the easiest and most secure and most reliable, you know, value proposition out there for drivers.
And I think that’s just … that’s happened now. That’s water under the bridge. They’ve really screwed this up, no matter what else happens over the next year.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by…
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
