The solutions are there to help people save money, but there is
a disconnect. I don't think that the average
person or even the average member of Congress understands
the technological advancements on clean energy.
One of my colleagues, Jared Huffman, who's a ranking member
on the Natural Resources Committee, the other day in
committee, actually entered into the record a battery because so
much of the discussion is divorced from the fact that
clean energy technologies, now we can store that energy and get
it onto the grid. Energy.
Isn't just an industry, it's. How the world works.
I'm Jigger. Shaw, a clean energy
entrepreneur. And I'm Jamie Nolan, a Clean
energy Communications executive. Welcome to Energy Empire.
Hey Jigger, I am really excited about today's guest.
Well, you know. It's one of those things where.
We're heading right into summer and when you're heading into.
Summer, what you think about is the representative from Florida?
Absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't describe
myself as a single issue voter, but I very much so am like a
climate and environment voter first.
I would say that that is like the weightiest thing for me.
And so because of that, the members of Congress who have
done the most on climate and clean energy like it.
They've got a little bit of rock star status.
And so I was nervous going into today's recording with
Representative Kathy Castor from Florida's 14th District.
She represents the Tampa Bay area because I've just been
following her work and, you know, read so many interviews
with her and, and just, she's just been a very effective
advocate for the issues that matter to us.
So this is our first episode featuring a member of Congress,
and I'm so glad it was her. Well, it's one of those things
where, I mean, you know, we're obviously good friends with, you
know, Sean Caston and other representatives in the house.
But the thing about Kathy Castor is that she's in her 20th year.
And she's, you know, she was really close to Speaker Nancy
Pelosi. And so as a result, she ran the
Select Committee in the House. And if you remember back then,
it was really politically charged, right, because AOC and
Senator Markey came out with a Green New Deal and.
There was like this protest. You remember Sunrise Movement?
Like locked themselves into. Speaker Pelosi's office.
And said you will do something on climate or else.
And you know, she really. Trusted Representative Castor.
To run that process for her and so.
Part of. This is also just a recognition
not just of her expertise around climate issues and her passion
for them. But also her the respect she has
from. Leadership and her as a.
Her ability to actually shape something that leadership will
get. Behind and actually turn into a
law and in this case right. She did all of that work.
So that in 2021, when you know, you and I went back in and we
went into the Department of Energy, there was.
Actually a body of work. That the.
Speaker of the House pushed. Through which became the
Inflation Reduction Act. Yes, and we're so thankful for
that and all of her hard work on this issue, very hard fought
wins over decades. One thing that I think is that
is really interesting about speaking to her as a
representative from Florida at this moment is just like the
disconnect between what her work at the federal level and then
what's happening at the state level in Florida.
I mean, that must be so frustrating for her.
You know, of course there's, you know, monopolistic utilities
there that are. It's like the grid, mostly on
gas, not on renewables, And they have incredible solar resources.
While also. As you know, Florida Republicans
are famously against oil drilling off of their own coast,
while they're famously for oil drilling off of Santa Barbara.
Of course, because that makes so much sense.
Yeah. You know, the other thing is
that I am excited because I'm going to the reindustrialized
conference June 16th and 17th in Detroit, which is the center
right group of people who want to do big things in the United
States and build manufacturing facilities and others, right.
And so part of what excites me about.
Her work? Is I think it's actually
resonating a lot with folks who want to build big things in this
country because they recognize that she's critical to
permitting reform and critical to a lot of the other things
that they need to be able to get the permission to move faster.
Well, I can't wait to hear more about that conference.
Maybe you need to. We need to rustle up some guests
and see who you can talk to while you're there.
It'll be awesome. Energy Empire is powered by.
Octopus Energy. I hear it at every.
Conference, we need more generation, more transmission.
You're saying we don't? We do, but we're ignoring
something faster. Sitting in people's homes and EV
is basically a 60 kWh battery idle most of the day across the
US. That's gigawatts we're not
using. Utilities.
Have pitched demand response for. 20 years and it still
hasn't. Scaled.
Why is this time? Different.
Because we're not asking customers to change behaviour,
we're automating it. The grid treats customers like
demand. They're actually distributed
infrastructure. Connect those assets and you can
shift load overnight at scale. So the constraint isn't
technology. It's coordination, the solutions
already deployed, we just need to use it.
Thanks, Natasha. That was Natasha Crowe, VICE.
President of marketing and comms for Octopus North America If.
That's the version of the grid you.
Want check them out? The link is in the show notes.
Thank you so much for being here.
I'm so excited for this conversation.
So you've been in Congress nearly 20 years.
You chaired the Select Committee on the climate crisis under
Speaker Pelosi. And you've been one of the
loudest voices on climate in the House for as long as the House
has had a climate fight, which is why I'm like, starstruck
having you here. And now DeSantis has redrawn
your district to make that feel like kind have perhaps a
liability. So can you walk us through what
just happened? Wow, what just happened?
Wait, you know, folks who are watching the democracy crisis we
have going on in America will understand that many of the the
GOP policies are very unpopular. Inflation is high, gas prices
are high, housing prices are very high.
And they they're afraid they're going to lose this election big
time. I mean, the, the party in power
always loses congressional seats after in the midterm election.
So they wanted to rig, rig the game.
And what's different in Florida, though, is in our state
constitution, we have Republicans, Democrats,
independents put language in that says you, you're not
allowed to gerrymander for partisan purposes.
But they did it anyway. And the courts now,
unfortunately, we can't rely on them.
So people are are very outraged. They took a Tampa Bay area
district that I've had the privilege of representing and
spun it out into five different districts.
But, you know, right now it doesn't matter how they draw the
lines on the map. We have to draw the line for
people. So I'm in the fight.
It's a tougher district, but I have a a strong record of
delivering for my neighbors across the aisle.
Doesn't matter. So but this is a tougher
district. But I think the affordability
crisis, high electric bills, what's happening with the
heating climate and these very intense weather events,
droughts, floods, even freezes are people are awake to to what
that means in their own lives. Absolutely.
And you, you touched on this a little bit and mentioning the
the Hurricanes that you know have hit your district in the
last few years and Florida, certainly one of the hardest hit
climate states in the country. The state legislature
nonetheless has been stripping climate change out of the
state's energy laws. So how does that disconnect
actually feel on the ground? Like do people seem aware of it?
Jamie, no, they don't really know what's happening in in
Tallahassee, but but our local communities, mayors and county
commissioners understand this. They know it's going to be much
more expensive if they can't do some things to make their
communities more resilient, if they can't build roads and
bridges and communities with an eye towards climate resiliency
so that they can withstand the next flood that comes along or
the next freeze. There's just a general
frustration, though, with the cost of living in Florida and
the fact that the GOP that has been firmly in control for
decades, they just don't haven't had any solutions to lower
electric bills or property insurance costs.
So it just, if you're, if you follow along, this feels like
insult to injury. Like, things are already so
expensive and it feels like a gift to the electric utility
monopolies in our state that that do not want people to save
money on their electric bills. They don't want them to put
solar panels on their homes. They, they even rolled back our
energy efficiency goals in Florida years back.
So it's there's just a general frustration in our state and
people are pretty upset by it. One thing I was going to ask you
about here is that with the work you're doing with the Thriving
Economy project, there does seem to be a disconnect.
Where a lot. Of folks have talked about solar
panels or battery storage or EVs, etcetera, but a lot of
these solutions don't seem like, you know, they're speaking
directly to the electorate. Like, have you thought about
what you're doing differently within the Thriving Economy
project this time around to really solicit ideas that speak
directly to voters who, you know, might feel like they're
left behind by heat pumps and other, you know, technologies?
Yeah. And Jigger and Jamie, I'm so
appreciative for all of your hard work to to help speed a lot
of these cost saving, innovative technologies to the grid.
It just feels like the the rug was ripped out from under us
with this new administration, everything they've done to to
throw a wrench into into progress.
So it, it kind of reminds me of the moment in time before there
was a Select Committee on the climate crisis that helped
develop policies. After listening to people across
the country, scientists and entrepreneurs, innovators, folks
from the faith community, farmers, advocates, where we
listened and we were able to build a coalition for progress
to help lower energy bills and unleash this clean energy
revolution. And it feels like, OK, now we're
at a different moment in time where costs are even higher for
the average person. The solutions are are there to
help people save money, but there is a disconnect.
I don't think that the average person or even the average
member of Congress understands the technological advancements
on clean energy. One of my colleagues, Jared
Huffman, who chairs who's the ranking member on the Natural
Resources Committee the other day in committee actually
entered into the record a battery because so much of the
discussion is divorced from the fact that the clean energy
technologies. Now we can store that energy and
and get and get it onto the grid.
So thriving economy is about developing the solutions for the
here and now to help answer a lot of these questions for
people. What can we do even while Trump
is still in the White House to help lower electric bills and
build more resilient communities?
And a lot of this has to do with building those coalitions.
Again, we've already received about 1200 policy proposals,
about 140 submittals for the request for information.
There are so many great ideas out there across America.
Yeah. So let's let's gather them and
let's, let's unleash some of these innovators and these these
community leaders to educate the Congress on how you move forward
and help people save money. Now, the folks at Zillow and
like Red Finn and others are saying that Floridians are
quietly moving inland or talking about moving because of
hurricanes and flooding. That doesn't seem like a climate
change voter conversation. It's more of a just, you know, a
real estate agent conversation, right?
So are you hearing that from voters?
Like, you know, when you have a conversation about, you know,
sort of how they're adapting. They are the there is a little
bit of a housing downturn, but Florida has higher highs and
lower lows over the last 100 years when it comes to real
estate. And it's just natural after some
devastating hurricane seasons that that folks are stuck.
We, we're a high risk state. We have over 1300 miles of
coastline. We're the most hurricane prone
state. The damage from Helene and
Milton, we're not even going back to Ian or Irma, just
Helena. Milton was $4 billion.
And then when you add in the flood insurance claims, another
$6 billion, I think. And so it's very difficult for
people to rebuild. So they are kind of looking for
another refuge and that comes at a time when the cost of housing
is very high because of tariffs and insurance.
You're even if you move inland somewhat, you're not going to
get that much of a break on your property insurance and you're
sure not going to get a break on your electric bills because
Florida is really stuck in the past.
You would what would you guess in the Sunshine State, our
energy mixes. Oh, I.
Know it's. It's it's mostly dual fuel.
Like natural gas. You know, units.
It's it's, it's crazy, especially.
When NextEra is the. Largest owner of solar.
And wind farms in the country, it's they just not in Florida.
75% of our electric generation comes from gas in the Sunshine
State. And a lot of folks comment to me
when they travel to Florida, they, they say we really
expected to see more solar panels on industrial sites, on
large warehouses on, on homes. And unfortunately, our utility
monopolies and the politicians in our state capital have have a
stranglehold on cleaner, cheaper energy for, for our state.
And now it's really as we electrify everything and data
centers move in, people are just kind of choking on what the
future holds. That's why we think through this
thriving economy project, we can build the coalition's the
political power necessary to to educate folks on some real
practical solutions. And I saw what we did with the
Select Committee on climate. It didn't happen overnight, but
you build those coalitions and you educate folks and you you
bring people into the political process and speak to their their
hopes that they can live the American dream and not be priced
out of the neighborhood their parents grew up in or a job in,
in the clean energy economy. I want to talk about the war in
Iran. So obviously gas prices are up.
Your district is home to Central Command for a significant swath
of the US military. Does that change the energy
conversation that you're having there with constituents?
No, not at all. Those those outstanding service
members who serve at Macdill Air Force Base.
That's home to the Central Command that has the Middle East
area of responsibility and it's also home to Special Operations
Command and an air refueling wing.
But you know, Mcdill is a low lying Air Force Base and after
the Hurricanes, they were flooded out.
Every time a storm approaches, they have to relocate the
operation to another place. So they know that it's important
to, to build resilient housing, to build resilient command
centers. They have big energy, big and
growing energy needs that they're going to need the
cleaner, cheaper power, more resilient systems.
So they're pretty, they're, they're fairly educated on this
and they, you know, this experience goes back to the war
in Iraq and Afghanistan. What I hear from the outstanding
service members and their families are just like what I
hear from from my other neighbors.
The cost of Healthcare is high. They worry about getting access
to the doctor's office. They where they going to live.
It's very expensive in the Tampa Bay area.
And then how are they going to afford their electric bills?
They're very similar to to everyone else, but they're
they're proud service oriented folks that that so believe in
this country and I think they may understand the innovative
technologies that are available to us now that a lot of folks
don't really understand. It does feel like there are no
clean energy wars, right? No one's invading another
country over sunlight or wind. Power.
But at least in my lifetime, we started with protecting Kuwait
from Iraq. Then invading Afghanistan and
Iraq and now Iran. We keep getting into oil related
wars in the Middle East causing ripples through gasoline prices
and American. Politics.
Does that make the? Case for clean energy and energy
independence easier to sell in Florida now.
I think it does. I think it makes it easier to to
sell everywhere. People are so tired of spending
money in in foreign wars over oil and gas.
They want really, Americans deserve to have their tax
dollars spent on good schools and a college education or, or
lowering the cost of housing or taking care of our our veterans.
They're angry that every, all of the promises were made to lower
the cost of living. That was going to be Job 1 and
it that every turn, whether it's tariffs or the cost of
groceries, are ignoring the cost of the heating climate.
And now this war, it just feels like those promises have been
broken. People feel betrayed and they
there are solutions. And I think that it's up to us
to communicate the fact that you know what you don't have to be
hooked up to to a gas plant. You, you can tap into cleaner,
cheaper energy through through solar technology.
Your, your local parks and rec center and fire stations like
we've done in Tampa can run on solar.
You can begin to ride cleaner transit systems like we've done
in Saint Petersburg through the the Sunrunner and trying to
electrify things that are going to save taxpayers money and your
community's money. So we've got to kind of
breakthrough a lot of the issues that that tend to drive people's
emotions and take them off on these tangents and talk about
what's what's really possible in their lives.
That's why I'm hopeful this thriving economy project that
we're going to release in September will capture some of
those those hopes and aspirations.
Yeah, I mean, something I was talking about with my cousin
this last weekend was how frustrated I am as somebody who
buys health insurance on the exchange, right.
We had that big fight last year. Healthcare costs are way up, and
now we're talking about increasing the military budget
to $1.5 trillion. And, you know, somehow, like,
figuring out how to do reparations or whatever in Iran
and we can't find the money to, like, make healthcare more
efficient. Like, how does 1, you know, sort
of have these conversations right now in DC when we're just
going from crazy to crazy to crazy?
Unfortunately, a lot of my Republican colleagues are scared
of they're they're they're scared to take on the president.
I mean, even when they you have states that were benefiting from
new clean energy projects that were fully permitted.
You all know better than I do. Fully permitted and about to
begin construction to help keep electric bills low and the Trump
administration pull cancels those projects for political for
reasons. I, I confronted the current
energy secretary with the fact that they went into blue States
and and arbitrarily canceled projects and a court said he was
wrong and he still wouldn't admit that there was a problem.
All of this is just fueling the the higher cost of living and I
they're, they're going to pay a price for it.
And I you hate to think that they have to go through paying
that high of price before they they change and and work on real
solutions that will will help our neighbors back home.
One thing I was curious about though before.
Diving into your thriving economy project is it It does
seem. Like for a long time.
People got used to demand bases staying flat because of LED
lighting and that kind of stuff. And but now with AI and
electrification of electric vehicles and heat pumps and that
kind of stuff, we really do seem to have a big surge in power
demand, right? The biggest surge maybe in a
generation. Are we entering?
An era where energy. Abundance itself becomes the
central political issue. I think so.
I I I really do. How are we going to power our
lives unless we have abundant new resources and we're more
efficient too. You know, a lot of the the this
year in Congress has just been the GOP war on energy efficient
appliances. I mean, most a lot of a lot of
floor time in the House of Representatives has been spent
on the GOP rollback. You know what a weight colossal
waste of of time and resource at a time.
Of course, our neighbors back home need as much energy
efficiency as possible and you don't want to complicate that
and then the to power communities and and businesses.
We need enormous amounts of new power and the power that's ready
to come under the grid is clean solar and wind.
Plus we have these new technologies, virtual power
plants and, and being able to do more there.
And we're just we're, we're the, the my GOP friends.
They're they're just now kind of learning about this.
And we really need folks across the country with the the
knowledge and know how to, to communicate to these members and
make sure they they understand what is possible.
We want want America to to live up to everyone's expectations.
This is we're celebrating 250 years.
What a better way to celebrate it than to to work together to
lower people's electric bills and and boost American
innovation and global competitiveness.
That's what a lot of the policies and the Inflation
Reduction Act we're all about. We need to get back there.
But even now, even since the RA pass, there's so many new
opportunities, so many smart people, so many folks who who
desire a better economy for everybody who are ready to get
to work. So we, we all have a stake in
this. OK, so we've spoken a lot about
the Thriving Economy project, which is the House Democrats
attempt to rate the next big energy and climate bill before
they're in power to pass it. But can you give us like a
context from the beginning? What is the project and what are
you trying to accomplish? Yeah, the Thriving Economy
project is an ambitious project to help bring lower cost energy
onto the grid and make people's lives more resilient.
We we see a future where folks can live the American dream,
find a good job in the clean energy economy or related and
bring on some of these technologies that will give
America a boost in global competitiveness.
We can't let China eat our lunch and I'm afraid that they are
capturing a lot of the global market right now.
We can't we can't cede that market to China.
We have to get back to working with our partners and allies to
to lift lift lives here in America, but but our partners
across the globe. I'm also working specifically on
a chapter relating to community resilience with Samantha
Medlock, who was a leads up a group called climate risk.
She was a high-ranking official at FEMA and understands the
importance of making sure that that local communities have the
tools they need need to build more resilient infrastructure to
make sure we're upgrading codes and standards.
Doing this in an affordable way because what I learned when
Helene, hurricanes, Helena, Milton hit my community, it's
very expensive to try to build back.
So let's build infrastructure in a more resilient way to begin
with. Local communities have a lot of
know how. Let's give them the resources to
do this. And some of the changes to FEMA
that are being proposed here in the House are already
bipartisan. Let's enact some of those into
law quickly so that we're saving money and we're we're building
in a more resilient way. So you covered.
Some of this already, but just just to ask in a different way.
I mean, if if the Democrats take over the House and you're in the
majority again in Energy and Commerce.
What are some things that you could move?
While Trump is president, right? I mean, it feels like geothermal
is currently having a moment. Weatherization programs
probably, you know, continue to need to be expanded.
You talked a little bit about FEMA.
Are there other? Priorities that you think can
pass while President Trump is in office.
There there may just be on on permitting reform where a lot of
the Democrats and some Republicans are interested in
building an electric grid that meets the needs for the next
century. You all know our our grid is
disjointed, it's aging. We don't do well passing energy
across regions. We have got to get to a modern
electric grid now. A lot of Republicans want
smoother permitting reform when it comes to pipelines and
things. So maybe there is something to
work on there in in the near term as well.
So just setting climate aside for our final question.
Say a voter in your district doesn't believe in, AKA does not
understand the science around climate change.
Why should they vote for you anyway?
They're going to vote for me because I stand up and fight for
them in their pocketbooks, whether it's their healthcare,
their housing, but their electric bills.
I stood with my neighbors a few months ago is they were burning
their electric bills. They were actually taking them,
throwing them into a garbage can, lit on fire.
We have solutions for that. The incentives are are totally
wrong, right, for electric utility monopolies to have you
use as much power as possible, not save on your electric bill
or use some of the solar clean energy technologies that are
available. We've got to change the
incentives here. And I think if we can do that,
we will be able to power people's lives in a cheaper,
much more affordable way. Well, I have.
Just been so inspired. By your leadership.
I think, as you know, I did a lot of work with the
Hillsborough School District. Before I.
Served in the Biden administration.
I do think that so much has changed since you ran the Slack
committee in 2018. I think the cost of solar panels
and battery storage are way down.
The cost of electric vehicles are way down.
I mean a lot. Of the technology around virtual
power plants in the bill that you sponsored.
And it seems like even Representative Federchuk, I
think has got a great utilization bill, right?
And so it does feel like there is a moment here where folks are
going to, you know, allow the Great American technologies that
we've invented and researched here to get deployed at scale.
But, you know, I frankly can't imagine it happening without
your leadership. So I very much appreciate you
continue to fight the fight. Well, Jigger and Jamie, I'm I'm
really indebted to, to you. You took the baton and ran with
it and America is a better place for it.
Now. We're going to reset again.
We're going to keep going. We're going to reset again.
People are inspired by by the possible.
And I think there is a lot right now that is possible that will
improve people's lives. But you all were hard at work at
it. And we're going to need your
your voices and your know how in the coming years.
Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for joining us.
It's been an honor having you. Hey, thanks so much.
Energy Empire is supported by S2G Investments if you haven't.
Checked out their podcast. I highly recommend it.
They have a great. Recent episode on the long term
effects of the. Iran war and the blockade of the
Strait of Hormuz. In the episode Sanjeev.
Krishna and Frank O'Sullivan and Bala Nagarajan make a compelling
case that this disruption could be the most powerful accelerant
for renewable energy in a generation.
And in future episodes, they'll be exploring how those forces
are reshaping our food systems and ocean intelligence.
Sound. Interesting.
Go find the S2G podcast. And start with the global energy
order has changed now what? Wow, she didn't disappoint.
She stays. So busy.
It is amazing to me how much detail she really understands
and is able to relay to her voters and her constituents.
Absolutely. I mean, I think she's really
committed to furthering American ingenuity and innovation.
And I also loved how passionately she spoke about the
military service members that live in her district.
And I mean, we've spoken to Tim Haid and I know you and I just
know a lot of veterans that work in this industry.
And if anyone understands the benefits of these technologies
in terms of military readiness and reducing casualties from
like refueling and all of the, the various benefits associated
with clean power that direct directly relate to our military,
she really gets that. Her constituents get it.
And so I hope she gets re elected.
I know she's in, she mentioned she's in a really tough district
down there in, in Florida since they've rewritten the, the, you
know, all of the, the lines with gerrymandering.
But she's an important advocate for our solutions.
And so I'm pulling for her and I'm honored that she joined us.
It was just such a treat. Well, things are getting nuts.
I mean, gasoline I think is $5 a gallon for half of the country
already. And you know, beef prices I
think have tripled. It's just nuts as to what's
happening with the Strait of Hormuz and how it's impacting
affordability across the country.
I thought she was really eloquent about it.
And I agree with you. I mean, she's in a uphill
battle. I think she's in a + 10 Trump
district now with the redistricting.
She mentioned that there might be some relief from the Supreme
Court of Florida, but I'm not holding my breath.
And but it does feel like things are just getting worse and worse
and worse with with what's happening in Iran.
So I'm hopeful that the work that she's doing on the
Thriving, you know, Economy project really brings the best
ideas to the table to really bring some relief.
I mean, more immediately, I'm, I'm excited about the thriving
economy project. I don't know if I think that
it's going to be relevant in this election cycle, but I do
know that there's no denying the impacts of climate, whether or
not you call it that, on your life and on your expenses and on
your frankly, like your stability because of these
hurricanes in Florida. And so I really just hope that
despite her being in a + 10 Trump district, that her
constituents are really just looking at the broken promises
from the Trump administration and particularly in terms of
affordability, cost of living and electricity, affordability
specifically. I mean, there's no way that they
can turn themselves inside out to say that they have met their
promises on just what it takes to live in this country and
afford a life in this country and sees that Democrats really
are the the party that they're coming with the solutions at
this moment in time, particularly on energy.
And I was happy to hear that she said that if the Democrats do
win, that she thinks that they'll take up permitting
reform. Because I think that that was a
real lost opportunity for us during the Biden years that we
didn't get that done. Yeah, Manchin Barrasso turned
out to be a pretty good deal that we probably should have
gotten across the finish line. Yep.
Well, thank you so much to our sponsors S2G and Octopus.
And I think Next up we're going to have our segment of Ask
Jigger. So I'm ready to ready to ask the
hard questions. Welcome to Ask Jigger, our
weekly segment where our listeners send in their
questions for Jigger and we read them live.
If you have a question for Jigger, the link is in the show
notes, so be sure to check that out.
Our first question is from David Schmidt, who asks where should
one person put their effort? You've argued that individuals
can't slow climate change by counting their own carbon.
Scale is what matters. So for someone who doesn't run
an energy company, doesn't have millions to deploy, and isn't an
elected official, where should they actually put their time and
energy? Yeah, it's a good question and
one that I think has a lot of answers.
In general, you start with the fact that every single town and
city in the United States is its own jurisdiction.
And so the fact that solar is easy to install in one town
doesn't mean it's easier to install in the next town.
And so each person can be helpful with their City Council
or their mayor or county commissioner to say, hey,
there's this huge opportunity. You're slow slowing us down.
You know, like if you want to convert your local police force
to electric vehicles, police cars generally get like 3 miles
a gallon for their cars because they're generally just idling on
the side of the road most of the time.
And so electric vehicles are really fast payback for police
forces, right? And so a lot of that is sort of
local lobbying, but hopefully it's with people you went to
high school with, right, as people that that trust you and
that you trust them. You know, if you want to step up
from that, we need a million new small businesses in this country
to sell the last mile, right? People need to do sales.
They do maintenance, they do lots of other things.
And so if you want to start your own business, you know this is a
great industry to start a small local business and be really
become almost a franchise of some of the large players and
then there's obviously investment.
Opportunities locally as well. Great.
Our next question is from Julian Smith and Julian is headed to
College in fallout to 2026 majoring in construction
management, minoring and Sustainability and they want to
know how AI changes the calculus.
Is a four year degree still the right path for someone aiming at
the built environment and clean energy or is there a better
route? Well, you know, I mean, I have
worked with so many construction companies.
One of my really good friends is the folks at Mortensen
Construction. But you know, they hire a lot of
people and they are so busy building data centers, building
solar and wind farms, etcetera. And a lot of their construction
managers have gone to college. And so, so it's certainly great
to go to college if that's the career.
That you want to. Focus on, there's clearly a lot
of tools that they use, right, to be able to do the project
management. There's a lot of AI, I'm sure
going into those tools. And so hopefully you'll learn
about them in your degree program.
But I also think it's important to turn wrenches on the summers,
right? And like, so I turned wrenches
all summer when I was in my engineering school at the
University of Illinois, that I think it's valuable to actually
try to go be in the shoes of the people that you're going.
To be managing in the. Future it pays pretty well in
the summer but also it makes you a better.
Manager of the future. Love that turning wrenches.
Never heard that turn of phrase. I like it.
All right. Our next question is from Justin
Brody, Comet on Volts with David Roberts.
You said you expect 50 climate tech IPOs this year.
That's a much bigger number than most people are forecasting.
Can you go deeper? What's driving it and which
categories are leading? Well, I certainly believe that
there is 50 companies that should be going public right
now. I think it's been fantastic so
far when you see folks like Solve Energy and Fervo.
And most recently, I think. There's a SPAC that features a
battery company called Factorial Energy.
And so there's a lot of folks going public, which is
wonderful, but there's so many more that.
Need to go public? Faster.
There's a lot of companies that are already cashflow positive.
They don't need to raise a lot of money, but they need the
currency of going public, right, because then they can acquire
other companies, etcetera. And so that's a lot of what I do
in my day job with my partner Jonathan Silver and Multiplier.
We help these companies go faster, go public faster and get
exits faster. But you know, I may have been
slightly hyperbolic on the 50, but not really.
I think there's 50 that are ready to go public.
We'll see whether they decide to go public.
But for instance, if you're in the geothermal space right now.
You should most certainly be going public.
OK. That's kind of a spicy take.
I feel like do you, if you have a geothermal thermal company,
you should go public? We want to hear from the
geothermal companies about that. OK.
Our final question is from Tim Fu in Massachusetts.
And Tim has solar batteries in an EV and he's envious of Texans
who get paid for sending power back during peak events. 2
parts. What would have to change for
homeowners in Massachusetts and other states to get access to
programs like Texas's? And why are so few EVs enabled
for vehicle to grid? Are the automakers deliberately
slow walking that? Yeah, great questions.
So one, it sounds like you're in Massachusetts and Massachusetts
has a fantastic program called Connect Solutions.
That program extends into Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Rhode Island and so and it actually is quite lucrative.
They pay you a little bit upfront, but then they pay you
more overtime for five years. So a lot of folks are installing
batteries, putting in smart water heaters, putting in smart
thermostats, putting in EV chargers that are programmable.
Etcetera, right and taking advantage of.
Really a lot of demand flexibility programs are
championed within the Massachusetts utility companies.
On the V to G side, it's proving to be a lot harder than people
expected because they didn't plan for their cars to be V to G
Interestingly enough, Tesla did plan for their cars to be V to G
and so they have inverters actually on the car.
And so you can really use a very simple plug to have Tesla go
vehicle to grid. Whereas for all of the rest of
the vehicles, you need to install a separate inverter, you
need to connect it directly into the sub panel.
And so it can easily cost 8 or $9000 to put in a vehicle to
grid system. And so a lot of auto companies
are unlocking the vehicle to grid feature, but they're also
looking to redesign their vehicle to figure out how to
make that process a lot simpler and easier.
So I think it's going to take a few years because.
Vehicle to grid cost a lot of money right now, but the rest of
those VPP programs are just as lucrative, if not more lucrative
than Texas. Wow, more lucrative than Texas?
I don't know about that checker. Throw out some examples.
What are some states that if our listeners are located there,
they should definitely look into what VPP programs are available?
So definitely Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, right,
Those programs are some of the most.
Lucrative programs that are around.
Duke Energy Colorado and Excel Minnesota, our friends in South.
Carolina as well as. North Carolina for Duke have
good programs. Our Friends of the Rocky
Mountain Power has their Wattsmart program in Salt Lake
City and I think that extends into Wyoming and other places.
So very exciting. Awesome, I did not hear you
mention Virginia. I guess I'll have to keep
waiting. Not yet, but it's coming.
It's coming any day now. Is it?
Come on. Well, our new friend is, is we
heard our new friend will be working on energy policy there
in the State House. So I'll look forward to
following up with Louise White about that.
We're very excited for her. Thank you so much for joining us
for this segment of Ask Jigger. If you would like to ask Jigger
a question, please check out the link in our show notes.
Thanks to our sponsor Octopus Energy for sponsoring the
segment.