Jennifer Granholm on What Will Survive of Biden's Energy Legacy | Odd Lots

Summary

In this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Energy, joins Joe and Tracy to explore the sustainability of the Biden Administration's energy policies amid political turnover. They discuss the evolution of the Department of Energy under Granholm, highlighting achievements in clean energy and domestic manufacturing. Despite political uncertainty, Granholm is optimistic about the continued bipartisan support for clean energy initiatives, especially given their economic benefits and job creation. They also delve into the potential challenges and innovations surrounding energy production, infrastructure, and global competition.

Highlights

• Jennifer Granholm's tenure has seen the DOE's role expand to include massive infrastructure projects 🚧.
• The U.S. sees potential conflicts between energy independence and clean energy goals, especially concerning China 🇨🇳.
• Many clean energy initiatives have bipartisan support, benefiting numerous states economically 💲.
• Granholm emphasizes the importance of planning for a modern, resilient grid 🏗️.
• The podcast explores the impact of big data and AI on energy consumption 💻.

Key Takeaways

• Clean energy initiatives by the Biden Administration have led to significant manufacturing and innovation in the sector 🌱.
• The Department of Energy has shifted from a focus on research to deployment and infrastructure during Granholm's tenure ⚡.
• Bipartisan support exists for many energy policies due to economic and job benefits, despite political shifts 🤝.
• Innovations in energy technology, like dynamic line rating, are vital for improving grid efficiency ⚙️.
• Geopolitical and energy security considerations are driving a push towards domestic energy production rather than relying on imports 🌍.

Overview

Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, talks with the Odd Lots hosts about the future of the energy sector amidst the Biden Administration's transition. Granholm brings insight into how her leadership has shifted the DOE's focus from purely research to actionable deployment and large-scale infrastructure projects, reflecting on both past achievements and future challenges.

A significant theme during the discussion is the economic impact and global considerations of maintaining and increasing U.S. energy production. While recognizing the need for energy independence, Granholm outlines how international competition, particularly with China, and domestic opportunities are shaping energy strategies.

The conversation also touches on how technological advancements are changing the energy landscape, including innovations needed for the grid and the burgeoning influence of AI and big tech on energy consumption. Granholm remains optimistic about the bipartisan support for clean energy initiatives, considering the economic benefits they bring nationwide.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:30: Introduction and Setting the Scene The introduction chapter sets the scene for the podcast episode, where the hosts Joe Wisenthal and Tracy Alay welcome the listeners. The mention of a new administration coming in hints at the discussion topics likely to be covered in the podcast related to changes or expectations with the political shift. This sets the stage for deeper conversations as the episode progresses.
• 03:30 - 09:30: Energy Dominance and Clean Energy Expansion The chapter discusses the Biden administration's focus on clean energy expansion as a major agenda item. It highlights initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Department of Energy's loan programs directed by Jer Shaw, which are aimed at deploying billions in the clean energy sector. The chapter also raises concerns about the sustainability and continuation of these initiatives under a new administration with potentially different energy priorities.
• 09:30 - 15:00: Role and Evolution of the Department of Energy (DOE) This chapter discusses the role and evolution of the Department of Energy (DOE) over a span of four years, focusing on various energy technologies. The discussion touches on political influences, specifically Biden's clean energy strategies. The chapter references past episodes covering nuclear energy, oil, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, geothermal energy, and the resurgence of load growth, indicating a detailed exploration of these topics.
• 15:00 - 23:00: Political Durability and Bipartisan Support This chapter discusses the intersection of data centers and economic growth in America, focusing on energy initiatives. With the changing political landscape due to a new administration, there are many unresolved questions about the role of natural gas and the future of energy policies. The chapter reflects on numerous energy-focused discussions, highlighting uncertainty and the need for bipartisan support to address these challenges effectively.
• 23:00 - 31:00: US Energy Independence and Global Energy Markets The chapter discusses the perpetual importance of energy questions, emphasizing that human progress is closely tied to extracting more energy from inputs. The speaker reflects on the enduring nature of energy inquiries as a fundamental human concern and expresses enthusiasm for ongoing exploration of energy issues. The discussion takes a philosophical turn, highlighting the relationship between energy development and human advancement.
• 31:00 - 36:30: Impact of Data Centers and AI on Energy Demand The chapter begins with a discussion on an energy historian who has explored the historical energy expenditure by humans. He has written books calculating the human calories needed for ancient tasks like growing plants or hunting animals. The effort required is compared to the energy or calories yielded from such activities, emphasizing the historical perspective on energy use.
• 36:30 - 43:00: Conclusion and Reflections The chapter discusses the progress of energy and human development, focusing on the widening gap between energy input and output over time.

Jennifer Granholm on What Will Survive of Biden's Energy Legacy | Odd Lots Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Bloomberg audio Studios podcasts radio [Music] news hello and welcome to another episode of the odd Lots podcast I'm Joe wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alay Tracy obviously new Administration coming in
• 00:30 - 01:00 one of the stories that we covered a lot with this Administration was there has been a lot happening in the energy world yes so obviously clean energy was a big part of things like the IRA but we also had the department of Energy's loan programs office headed by Jer Shaw who we've had on the podcast a number of times deploying billions of dollars across new clean energy and the question that everyone is asking now is how much of that is durable in the face of a new Administration which has said various uh
• 01:00 - 01:30 let's just say unflattering things maybe about Biden's clean energy Tendencies no there's so much like we probably I mean if we like went back and looked at all of the episodes we've done and categorized them over the last four years because we've done lots of episodes about the specific Technologies we've done episodes on nuclear we've done numerous episodes on oil and the use of the Strategic petroleum reserve and we've done episodes on geothermal and then the return of load growth in
• 01:30 - 02:00 the in America between data centers and economic growth Etc we've probably done more energy episodes than any other topic or at least close and we're at a Crossroads probably in multiple ways the changing the administration is the obvious one but then there are really just big questions about what's working and what's the future of natural gas and how you know or like there are just so many ongoing energy questions that feel very unresolved to me yes and we have
• 02:00 - 02:30 another four years uh to look forward to to ask more questions and then another four years after that but I am pleased to say it's energy questions forever it really I I mean I think it you know what it's cuz this is the human question right no for real like if we can get a little philosophical here it's energy questions forever because human progress is the story of getting more energy out of input I forget the name do you know that guy I I can't think of his name
• 02:30 - 03:00 there's like this energy historian I thought you were going to say philosopher he almost is he's I'm like blanking on his name people will remember historian no not urgen he goes back deeper and he has these books where he literally like calculates the amount of human calories that someone would have had to expend 5,000 years ago to grow a plant or you know fight hunt an animal and how many calories are expended in that process versus how many calories you get out of the animal that you hunt or whatever and then does the
• 03:00 - 03:30 subtraction and human progress is essentially the history of expanding the gap between how much energy you put in and how much energy you get out so it really will be energy questions forever okay now that we've set the scene uh we've gone all the way in prehistory to set the scene for a discussion about the next four years and the previous four years I should say as well well in the meantime in a slightly shorter scale we do have absolutely the perfect guest today we are going to be speaking with Energy Secretary Jennifer granholm about
• 03:30 - 04:00 everything that's happened in the last four years and the political durability questions and what she's done with the doe during her tenure so uh secretary granholm thank you so much for coming on outlot yeah love it thanks so much for having me absolutely you know I want to start with sort of a big picture question maybe something that's been on my mind for a while actually we saw an incredible boom under this Administration in domestic oil production also domestic gas production ction and I don't think it got a ton of
• 04:00 - 04:30 attention for various reasons but also one of the reasons was it didn't seem like it was something that at least on the trail that the administration bragged about during the election season is this something when you look back on the last four years and we'll get into some of the new energy Investments and the long term is this something that you are proud of or that Democratic Administration should be proud of the success of our domestic hydrocarbons well we certainly have achieved energy dominance that is for
• 04:30 - 05:00 sure under this Administration and much of that was due to the fact of course that there was the invasion of Ukraine and it pulled you know a lot of Russian oil off the global market and so that that really compelled us to step up and part of that stepping up was releasing from the Strategic petroleum Reserve enough to stabilize markets and so as a result of that and the the price signal that was set the demand signal that was set I think we were able to do that and
• 05:00 - 05:30 that's why gasoline today is hovering just a little above $3 uh a gallon is because there is a supply on the market but all of that is true at the same time as we were expanding the energy Pi significantly and saw obviously a huge investment in both the manufacturing of products to bring us clean energy as well as the deployment and the generation of that energy well let's talk about that clean energy expansion then and I realize you
• 05:30 - 06:00 know a lot of things have happened over the past four years us oil production has boomed as Joe just pointed out but the department of energy the doe itself has changed in terms of its role in You Know Not Just Energy security but also in the broader US economy when you look at the doe now at the tail end of 2024 versus the doe that you took over what are the key differences how has it evolved it is such a great such a great story because you know the doe
• 06:00 - 06:30 historically has been a research and development agency with also a large focus on National Security through our nuclear deterrent and so we have 17 National Labs and we were focused on early stage research maybe some smallscale demonstration but really focused on the you know the earlier side of these Technologies in addition to our our nuclear weapons responsibilities so when we came we said look there is a
• 06:30 - 07:00 huge role here an important role for deployment and for focusing on the building out and the reshoring of manufacturing of the products that would get us to that deployment so we reorganized the entire department we added a whole new vertical that was focused on deployment it was called it is called the under secretary for infrastructure clean energy infrastructure recruited from the private sector David crane to come in and head that up and he brought in a
• 07:00 - 07:30 number of other people from um both the finance industry as well as the clean energy industry so that we could match both our great research portfolio with marketing making sure that these products would be successful in the marketplace and you know when the inflation reduction Act was passed and the bipartisan infrastructure law the department of energy got 60 new programs that we were to execute on over a hundred billion dollar and so that reorganization of the department has
• 07:30 - 08:00 enabled us to get that funding out the door I'm proud to say that as we're speaking right now 99% of the programs that we were given have issued at least one round of funding and the reason why not all rounds of funding have been issued is because they're multi-year commitments multi-year funding opportunity announcements so we've really we've really reorganized in the result and the proof is not just inside of due but really across the country and I hope we get a chance to talk about that incredible manufacturing boom
• 08:00 - 08:30 that's happened as a result of the inflation reduction act in energy I we definitely want to talk about that by the time this episode comes out this question may not even be Germain anymore but we are recording this on December 20th and last night the house failed to pass a bill that would have kept the government open just from your perspective right now if the government shuts down what does that mean for various things that have where the money has not been sent out the door what happens to those plans yeah I mean some
• 08:30 - 09:00 of that depends on how long the shutdown is for and we we are able to manage our Loan program office and our deployment arm through a a shutdown through some you know some bits of a shutdown we are proceeding ahead and our teams are proceeding ahead we're preparing for a lapse but we think we have the ability to get the rest of the loan portfolio commitments that are teed up out the door maybe we can talk about the durability of the loans more broadly
• 09:00 - 09:30 because you know regardless of what happens with the shutdown there is the new Administration coming in both Joe and I were at the deploy 2024 event in DC recently and you gave a great speech there but I got to say like it felt a little bit like a therapy session for people that were there like the message was very much Don't Panic Keep Calm and Carry On I think you even flashed that old uh War
• 09:30 - 10:00 yeah and there is like a sense of unease or uncertainty about how much of all of this is going to continue into the new Administration like give us a sense of your gut feeling about it at the moment and what you're doing to ensure that some of this work will continue as I mentioned we're really focused on on getting the remaining funds out the door that we can in this year and it up to January 20th so that's one ways once you have those commitments and obligations and contracts are signed it's much more
• 10:00 - 10:30 difficult to undo but also I as I mentioned at deploy 24 really perhaps I don't think I'm being irrationally exuberant but I do think that the inflation reduction Act and the fact that there are for example 18 House Republicans who sent a letter saying please don't touch the inflation reduction act because it's benefiting their districts and their states the fact that 85% of the funding is going to Red States and red districts gives me
• 10:30 - 11:00 some hope that those members of congresses are not going to want to undo the opportunities now now that their citizens have to build these products of the future and future facing jobs I mean it is astonishing that five over now 500 million half a trillion dollars has been invested in this clean energy economy in the United States since the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law that and the inflation reduction act that is astonishing and for every $1 of public
• 11:00 - 11:30 money there are $6 of private money so the private sector is going to have something to say about this as well and they don't want to obviously see this undone we've made and honestly just from a if you step back from a policy point of view Democrats and Republicans agreed that we should be reshoring these manufacturing jobs that were lost because of poor trade deals or trade deals that were unenforced we should be getting those back why would we be seeding the territory to China or any
• 11:30 - 12:00 other country and so the fact that that's happening the fact that over 900 almost 950 factories have been announced across this country is astonishing and they're happening in all these communities that have been often left behind in the past and so I think it would be political malpractice to undo that so I I have great optimism that it will continue plus the margins in the house are so narrow that 18 Republicans that and again that was a couple that
• 12:00 - 12:30 was a month or more ago uh signed a letter saying don't undo this I think it's very unlikely to be undone now will there be components of things that are you know that folks have been talking about you know will they try to block additional funding for Ev chargers for example you know Perhaps Perhaps some of that around the edges but I don't think the manufacturing side and the supply chains and the critical minerals that are being incentivized uh to be produced inside the United States I don't think
• 12:30 - 13:00 that's going to go away just to push back on this a second thinking of trade deals in the past that have hollowed out certain manufacturing capacity in the US which many people might agree with on the other hand if others would say well if the actual imperative for a lot of this stuff is climate specifically why not import more from the lowest cost largest scale producer of climate Tech cheap solar cheap batteries we put up pretty big tariffs
• 13:00 - 13:30 on EV Tech in the US we want to bring solar back from a job standpoint I get it but reconcile that with the sort of urgency that the Administration has talked about with climate well I think we can achieve that urgency and we can build at home but let's just say this it would be really foolish to trade our Reliance upon oil from OPEC for a Reliance upon technology from China if we want to be energy sec cure if we want to be strong as a nation a man a nation
• 13:30 - 14:00 that doesn't manufacture the means for its own energy security is a weak nation and we are not going to be a weak Nation this is why we have you know other countries have engaged in industrial strategy industrial policy and we have not and our failure to do so had left us without a manufacturing sector and part of that is for our National Defense as well and so just letting it go overseas is a terrible strategy for National Security and for energy security and so
• 14:00 - 14:30 I think that I totally understand we want these products to be cheap we want them to be less expensive affordable for our people and we continue to drive down that cost it's the United States and our technology our research and development that has brought down the price of batteries by 80 85% now I mean and same with uh Solar Technologies and it's true that China came in and had a strategy to Bigfoot us and to take that technology and to develop that technology and deploy it in China and we're saying no more we're not going to sit by and watch
• 14:30 - 15:00 that happen we are going to get in the game we're going to fight and so I'm excited that that's actually happening as the former Governor of Michigan who uh was governor during the time of the auto bankruptcies and before and who you know saw so many factories leaving our state and and the devastation that's left behind from communities that saw those factories leave I'm telling you this is a whole new ball game it's like we are repairing the mistakes of the past we are bringing it back home
• 15:00 - 15:30 providing opportunity for folks here as well as creating the products that we can stamp made in America and and Export around the [Music] world I have a sort of DC process question you're you're sort of pointing out that there there might be some areas of overlap in terms of interests of the
• 15:30 - 16:00 outgoing and the in incoming administrations uh for instance Trump seems to like nuclear energy and Chris Wright certainly seems to like geothermal when this transition is actually happening like during this time period how much dialogue is there between you and you know your incoming successor and how do you sort of like hash out the new priorities or is there like a handoff note that you leave for your successor how does it all work
• 16:00 - 16:30 what's the comms actually like well so actually he and I have been trading phone calls and um I fully expect they'll be sitting down with him of course it's going to be a new Administration and they're going to have different priorities but they also have a landing team transition leaders who will Who are making who are you know going to be advising the incoming secretary who who hasn't had the experience At Doe but his Landing Team all have been part of doe in various ways in the past so there's a great familiarity there so those conversations
• 16:30 - 17:00 are happening even as we speak right now their Landing team is interviewing our various offices around the department to see you know what has changed what they want to keep Etc to your point though I just think it is critical that people understand the bipartisan support for so many of these Technologies you mentioned geothermal you mentioned nuclear we've been hugely bullish on both of those but there's also the support for critical
• 17:00 - 17:30 minerals and critical materials that build the batteries that's happening through our manufacturing and energy Supply chains office there's bipartisan support for you know hydroelectric power for water power you know there's bipartisan support for hydrogen and we're working on all of those and truly so many of the Republicans have said that they support an all of the above strategy and if it's all of the above and we build out this clean energy this energy pie you can't ignore the clean
• 17:30 - 18:00 side and many of those in Congress who have been all of the above understand that fully when you think about the scale of the energy challenge or planning and you know these are multi-year multi- decade ideas and nothing you know these dials shift very slowly I'm curious when you think about the US political system and the fact that who has power can change certainly every four years and actually every two years in many cases does this impair us
• 18:00 - 18:30 when you look at you know you talked about industrial strategy around the world and obviously China comes to mind I'm curious about how you sort of reconcile what I see as a Time duration mismatch between the scale of these challenges versus the reality of the political clock well there's no doubt that the climate imperative is upon us I mean we see every year all of these records being broken so we have a sense of we should all have a sense of urgency about that some see that as big of a
• 18:30 - 19:00 challenge but they do see the global competition as a huge challenge to be surmounted and they don't want to miss out on the 23 trillion doll Global Market that these Clean Energy Products represent if we're not building them someone else is going to be building them and why would we see the territory so one way or the other there's a sense of urgency what there's the urgency bumps up against is old process and old mindsets inide some areas I mean you
• 19:00 - 19:30 know one example I think of if we if we had had the opportunity to have another term I would definitely have been pushing further on uh supporting the grid and upgrading the grid the grid is you know 70% of the grid is over 25 years old a lot of it built on wooden poles we've got all these extreme weather events we need a resilient grid and we don't have enough funding and we don't even think about it honestly in the way that we should we don't think about a National Grid you know because it's been pocketed in these silos all
• 19:30 - 20:00 across the country and there's so much state byst state you know impact on that but we should be thinking about it like we do our national highway system honestly we've got a highway trust fund you've got state and federal participation that's how we should be looking at our our energy grid if we were to move this forward and then the other thing I would really focus on is the fact that there's so much queued up in the interconnection cues you know we've got 3.7 terawatts of power queued up of clean power queued up we need to
• 20:00 - 20:30 overbuild and that blockage is a huge problem that I hope the next Administration addresses as well wait say more about the grid because I wanted to ask you about this it to some extent it doesn't matter how much clean energy we generate if we don't have the grid that's like actually able to handle that in an efficient way what would you do if if you were going to mount you know some sort of project would you try to be as ambitious as a National Grid of some
• 20:30 - 21:00 sort or would you have to kind of be more realistic and Tinker at the edges yeah we I you think you have to have both National as well as local components like you do your Federal Highway System and we have been in the process over the past four years of planning out what are those National interest electric corridors and uh where can we better make sure that the grid there's a handshake between one region and another so for example you know if you've got lots of lots of wind being generated in low population centers of
• 21:00 - 21:30 the country but you don't have a grid to be able to connect that to where population centers are you're missing you're missing the boat and of course you want to make sure that those communities are compensated for giving you know that power over and and that's what's happening in many places but we need more of it we have a dir of connection between regions and that needs to be invested in and I will say you know the one of the great things about working with our land ABS is that they are always coming up with
• 21:30 - 22:00 innovative solutions for how to get around for example NIMBY problems of transmission not in my backyard problems and so a lot of Technology now that's available to rec conductor existing lines so you can put twice the power on existing transmission lines that you don't have so you don't have to get rep permitted Etc there's new technologies about moving power um GD enhancing Technologies and you know Dynamic line rating that can move power much more
• 22:00 - 22:30 efficiently those Technologies can also really add a lot of generation capacity to the grid like about a 100 gaw of that just by enhancing Technologies on the existing grid you know you said something earlier in the conversation that stuck with me and I wanted to go back to it before I forget you said it doesn't make sense for the US to trade dependent on energy from OPEC for technology from China which intuitively makes sense to me on the other hand the
• 22:30 - 23:00 US is not really so OPEC dependent anymore and as as we talked about in the beginning the US is just an extraordinary amount of carbon resources here in the us both between oil and gas and there's more and more of it being produced all the time is there a sense from a sort of macro standpoint in the US that the transition from carbons to more electrified Renewables Etc are we playing to our strengths here or are we leaning against some of our natural
• 23:00 - 23:30 endowments that we have in the US well I think we've got endowments on both the molecule side as well as the electron side and we you know we've got for example these hydrogen hubs that we have announced one in the Gulf Coast a lot of the oil and gas majors are very interested in clean hydrogen they would derive it from natural gas so would be called Blue hydrogen but they would agree to sequester the CO2 and make sure there's no methane leaks along the way so I you know when I say the trading
• 23:30 - 24:00 OPEC what I really mean is that we don't want to rely on anyone else for our own energy whether it is from molecules or from electrons and we don't you know we want to be able to supply cleaner techn cleaner fuels whether it is you know whether it's fossil fuels or electricity to the world we want us to be able to export and in order to do that we have got to build up our capacity I will say this though the department of energy
• 24:00 - 24:30 does not regulate how much the oil and gas companies drill that's not in our purview and because there has been such an increase there was such an increase in drilling and improved techniques to be able to drill both oil and gas we saw this great increase in production and Export but we also know that at some point a number of international entities and modelers are saying that we're going to reach peak oil Peak gas so we we have
• 24:30 - 25:00 to you say do you me demand or Supply yeah well I mean demand and therefore Supply will follow right so I think it's really important to to have a Long View of course we our goal is to get to Net Zero by uh 2050 but it is net zero so that suggests that there will be some fossil fuels but there will be also Technologies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions which is one of the reasons why the department of energy in our Labs we've been focused on what are
• 25:00 - 25:30 those carbon management strategies that will enable us to get to Net Zero you know we have this other Big hary aous Goal which is to have a 100% clean electric grid by 2035 and uh we're on track to get there we'll be 80% clean we at least as per per the modelers by 2030 and uh on our way to that last 20% Which is the hard hard to decarbonize portions but nonetheless we feel that you have to do
• 25:30 - 26:00 both you've got to you've got to make sure the world is supplied make sure prices don't go up on the fossil side while we use technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and we use technologies that generate clean [Music] so on the topic of America being hashtag
• 26:00 - 26:30 blessed when it comes to hydrocarbons I mean one of the things that did happen this year is President Biden stopped licensing new LNG export Terminals and I haven't been following that decision all that closely but I think at a minimum you could say that it became a pretty big political controversy and one that is still kind of being hashed out so you guys just released a report looking at the impact of LG export from the US I guess my question is like looking back
• 26:30 - 27:00 is there anything that you would have done differently or looking back at the sort of cost benefit analysis of making that a whole big thing was it worth it well let me just say first of all yes it was because we needed to do this study because we do authorize new LG terminals but this study was a pause on new terminals and we have already authorized so much EX ort of LNG we've
• 27:00 - 27:30 authorized 48 billion cubic feet per day of LG we're only exporting as the largest exporter in the world about 13 billion cubic feet per day so that Gap in between 13 and 48 is all stuff that's either being built or hasn't even begun being built hasn't even reached a final investment decision that 48 billion cubic feet per day that's been authorized is a massive amount and so we this pause to do this study about whether more LNG should be authorized
• 27:30 - 28:00 did not impact any of the buildout of existing authorizations and it didn't stop any exports from happening it simply did not touch that at all there was fear that it would do that but it absolutely did not do that so it is important for us as a nation to determine what's in the public interest in terms of the export of natural gas that's required under the natural gas act so what are the factors that you look at to determine whether it's in the
• 28:00 - 28:30 National interest the public interest and so taking a look at what are the impacts at home if you're exporting a lot of your liquefied natural gas that means you're taking away from the natural gas that's used at home 48 billion cubic feet is basically about half of what we produce for all natural gas for use in the United States so what's the impact on pricing for folks at home that's one of the factors we looked at what is the impact on greenhouse gas emissions around the world by exporting that what is being
• 28:30 - 29:00 displaced by that um those are the things that the the study looked at the study was done by scientists and researchers at our National Labs and it came out found out that there are impacts and the question is going forward how the data from the study will be used by the next Administration and Beyond on that point obviously gas is a global market and you know in the end there are certain things if there's demand for it or if you know years down
• 29:00 - 29:30 the road there's demand for it then that's probably up to private sector actors to decide whether they want to make the investments in those Terminals and if there's not demand for it then there's not but when you think about the sort of carbon impacts the price impacts you laid it out in the study perhaps up to $100 a year extra for an American Family by the year 2050 so somewhat modest on the carbon impacts however does it change the dial I mean like when you think about these things when you think about the fact that there's a a
• 29:30 - 30:00 global market and so if someone if a country is not going to get their gas from the US they'll get it elsewhere and of course it's very important that the US was in a position to step up for energy exports especially when the war in Ukraine happened I'm just trying to think about the concern of further expansion of our export capacity if in fact that's what the world wants for the global market so first of all just to underscore that 48 billion cubic feet
• 30:00 - 30:30 per day that is almost meeting what demand is going to be by 250 it's just a huge amount of if it's all built out now it may not all be built out to your point you know the companies themselves have to get a final investment decision and if the demand is not projected to be there for that maybe that won't all be built out but it is true the US has an advantage in producing clean gas cutter is trying to rival us but we would like to see the furtherance of a whole
• 30:30 - 31:00 methane mitigation and monitoring regime that we do with our allies so that we can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions espec particularly methane emissions from LNG and at the point of combustion reducing the CO2 emissions as well so there's work to be done on that to create a you know an environment where we are producing the cleanest gas and it's being used in the cleanest uh way and the us is going to be in that in
• 31:00 - 31:30 that role and in fact the oil and gas Majors uh very much want to see us continue to to have an effort globally and to be leading an effort to reduce uh methane emissions globally so that their product is the product of choice so the other thing that's happened in the past four years is we've had you know the rise of generative Ai and booming demand for data centers which obviously use a lot of energy how has that impacted your role at the doe is it an opportunity for
• 31:30 - 32:00 you to maybe push clean energy a little more if you're dealing with tech companies that have made clean energy commitments yeah this is such a great question and and so important we recently today actually in fact our Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released a report talking about the increase in demand based upon data centers alone on the grid and we are going to have to add lots of gigawatts to be able to meet that and so the Sation that we've been having and the White House has convened the
• 32:00 - 32:30 hyperscalers as they we for we want the data centers to be built in the United States for national security reasons particularly AI the learning model data centers we want the hyperscalers to bring their own power meaning that we don't want the energy suck from these data centers to be socialized across the rate base everyday citizens shouldn't have to pay for that and we want it to be clean and theyve all committed they committed to their shareholders and
• 32:30 - 33:00 their strategic plans to use clean power and so as a result I mean you're seeing uh some very interesting announcements where you've got hyperscalers teamed up with for example small modular reactor companies or nuclear companies or geothermal companies like fvo who I know you talked to at the deploy 24 conference or companies or uh hyperscalers that have really wanted to build out solar Plus Storage adjacent to their sites or
• 33:00 - 33:30 at least do power purchase agreements that allow them to power to purchase clean power for their data center so it's gonna this new demand to your point is going to be built out it's probably going to be built out largely with clean energy and the you know and the good news is we can do this we can do this I mean this year alone we will have added 60 gaw 30 Hoover dams worth of clean power to the US Electric drip and these data centers you know if
• 33:30 - 34:00 there's 50 of them they may if they're gigawatt data centers that may be you know 50 gws that's the you know probably the out the high Mark of what they would be building out in the United States for sure that seems ambitious but if we're adding 60 gws this year alone without them bringing their own power because they're just starting to site these uh facilities we can do this and it's exciting all right I know we just have like a minute left so I'm going to ask you a huge question and you can truncate as much as you want when you came into the office the doe was largely known and
• 34:00 - 34:30 large part for nuclear waste storage and you've talked about the dramatic changes in terms of the mission of deployment and so forth for someone coming into running a new organization of any sort that has to do some major mission change what's been the biggest lesson or surprise to you about what that takes well I let me just say I don't know if it's a surprise because I heard before I got here that this was true but we have the most amazing team of people at the
• 34:30 - 35:00 department of energy the folks who have been working uh here for years and the new ones that we've hired about a thousand new people for this new mission of deployment that we have you know I'm so proud to be to be leaving to my successor a department that is full of unbelievable smart professionals 40,000 scientists at our National Labs people who understand both communities as well as
• 35:00 - 35:30 Technologies as well as the market it's really it's a an amazing place the department of energy this has been the best job I have ever had because of the team and the Brilliance of the team here so it is I feel wistful leaving but I am I'm proud that we're leaving such a great legacy secretary Jennifer grolm thank you so much for coming on outl you bet thanks so much [Music]
• 35:30 - 36:00 [Music] Tracy I thought that was a great conversation before we go any further the energy historian I was talking about in the beginning that was uh VAV smill who is a famous book energy and civilization a history like these are the big questions of the world no I need to read that that looks really good yes okay so a conversation about big question question I do think to your point you asked this question but it is
• 36:00 - 36:30 kind of funny that every years the US can completely redefine its major political priorities in this way and to some extent start from scratch that said as the secretary was pointing out there are some areas of overlap so nuclear and geothermal would be one of them with geothermal I sometimes wonder like how much Republicans like it just because it's guys with like giant drills doing like cool stuff well you know what I was I was joking about this with a friend
• 36:30 - 37:00 but if you the best thing that would happen for the geothermal industry would to for its durability would be for Democrats to start attacking it and say this is Just sh trying to reinvent himself like that would be a really good thing if it became really like how do you ensure it's uh you know you get the get the environmentalists say oh this is just the Shale Bros trying to maintain you know trying to reinvent themselves in some new clean way that would probably ensure a lot of partisan support for it yeah I I think that's a
• 37:00 - 37:30 great strategy okay look but there is also there is this tension that the secretary was getting at which is this idea that like okay on the one hand maybe the incoming Administration they are not the biggest clean energy fans let's just put it that way but on the other hand they are very keen to boost us domestic manufacturing they're very keen to compete against places like China and if a lot of Chinese manufacturing dominance is coming from things like EVS or solar panels it seems
• 37:30 - 38:00 like it can be an administrative priority your characterization of the new Administration I'd say is mostly right but people forget that Elon is a big solar bro yeah he's a e first of all he's an EV magnate he he got a loan from the loan programs office he did that too but he is also very bullish he doesn't actually talk about it very much and so who knows exactly what that means in terms of how it translates into policy he's talked a lot about how bullish on solar so I think a lot of questions and then on the sort of more nuts and bolts
• 38:00 - 38:30 political durability setting aside where the VIN diagram overlaps in terms of priorities as the secretary said there's just a lot of investments in red districts or red States and it'll be a very interesting question to see how much appetite there is for reversing some of these things yeah absolutely shall we leave it there let's leave it there this has been another episode of the aots podcast I'm Tracy Alay you can follow me at Tracy Alaway and I'm Joe Wiis you can follow me at the stwart uh you can follow our guest secretary
• 38:30 - 39:00 Jennifer granholm she's at SEC grandholm follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at kman arm- Bennett at dbot and kale Brooks at kale Brooks thank you to our producer Moses andam for more odd Lads content go to bloomberg.com odlot where we have transcripts a Blog and a newsletter and you can chat about all of these topics with fellow listeners 24/7 in our Discord discord.gg aots and if you enjoy aots if you like our on ongoing philosophical discussion of human history as energy
• 39:00 - 39:30 then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform and remember if you are a Bloomberg subscriber you can listen to all of our episodes Absolutely ad free all you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple podcast and follow the instructions there thanks for listening [Music]
• 39:30 - 40:00 oh [Music]