The past two years have been a watershed for American energy policy. A series of new laws – most notably the Inflation Reduction Act – have invigorated the domestic clean energy industry. At the same time, the war in Ukraine and the volatility in energy markets have stressed the importance of energy security. 

In the midst of all this, the US Department of Energy has the difficult task of responding to the urgency of climate change and implementing the United States’ new climate policies. 

What are the major opportunities and challenges afforded by the IRA? What is the role of American energy in a time of global upheaval? And what is the Biden administration doing to bring about a more just and secure energy transition?

This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. They discuss the American energy sector, the Inflation Reduction Act, and how the Department of Energy is using its executive authority to address the climate crisis. 

Secretary Granholm has overseen the Department of Energy and its nearly $50 billion budget since February 2021. She previously served as governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011 and as Michigan’s attorney general from 1999 to 2003. Secretary Granholm was also a distinguished professor of practice at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Law.

This episode of the Columbia Energy Exchange is a recording of a live, in-person conversation that took place last week during the Columbia Global Energy Summit 2023.

On April 12th, the Center on Global Energy Policy will celebrate its 10th anniversary. 

Jason Bordoff founded the Center after serving in the Obama White House. During his time in the administration, he recognized a need for unbiased, evidence-based research that examined energy issues across multiple dimensions – economics, national security, climate, and the environment. 

In 2013, with the help of a few friends and colleagues, Jason launched the  Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs to fill that void.

Ten years later, the institution is thriving in its mission to help address the world’s most challenging energy and climate problems through research, education, and dialogue.  

This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Jason about his journey to start CGEP, and why he chose Columbia University as its home. They discuss publishing actionable research that is useful to policy makers, and the role of education in responding to climate change.

From 2009 to 2013, Jason served as special assistant to President Obama, and as senior director for energy and climate change on the staff of the National Security Council. Prior to that, he held senior policy positions on the White House’s National Economic Council and Council on Environmental Quality. He is also co-founding dean of the Columbia Climate School.

This past year has reminded all of us that the energy transition, energy markets, and geopolitics are inextricably linked. In the last five years alone, extreme volatility in energy prices has created uncertainty for consumers and producers alike. 

For Wall Street in particular, an uncertain energy outlook brings up important questions about risk and strategy. Aligning energy investment with expected demand is hard, especially in the midst of an energy transition that’s happening in fits and starts. Yet, effective investment is vital for both energy access and climate progress.

How should investors address the tension between energy and climate needs? What do the coming years hold for oil and gas markets? And is the term “energy transition” even the right one? 

This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Arjun Murti about how Wall Street views the energy transition and how the turbulence has wracked energy markets over the past several years. Arjun shares the lessons he’s learned in his years as an energy markets analyst, and how his experiences inform his view of the path ahead. 

Arjun has spent more than 30 years analyzing the global energy sector on Wall Street. He spent 15 years as a partner at Goldman Sachs and recently served as senior advisor and now partner for Veriten. Has also had stints as director at ConocoPhillips and as senior advisor for Warburg Pincus. Arjun is also on the Center on Global Energy Policy’s advisory board.

Almost 30% of electricity in the western United States comes from hydroelectric dams. But what happens when the water in the rivers dries up?

The Western Area Power Administration – or WAPA – provides electricity to more than 40 million Americans. It relies heavily on the 57 dams in its service territory for supply. 

But over the past 20 years, the drought ravaging the West has been drying up reservoirs. Even the recent wave of snow and rain that dumped on western states like California won’t be enough to fill them back up.

New transmission projects, which WAPA can help build, could provide more connection from the western power grid to the east. And that would help stabilize the electricity supply. 

So, how is WAPA planning to serve its customers in the face of a changing climate? And what role does transmission infrastructure play in meeting their needs? 

This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Tracey LeBeau about how drought has affected WAPA’s operations in the past few years. They also discuss how the power generation will change moving forward and how transmission needs of the West might be met.

Tracey is the administrator and chief executive officer of the Western Area Power Administration. She joined the organization in 2014 as manager of the Transmission Infrastructure Program, where she oversaw WAPA’s $3.2 billion borrowing authority. Tracey has also served as senior vice president at WAPA and was responsible for managing transmission system operations and maintenance.

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed last year, aims to accelerate the clean energy transition, and benefit American workers, communities, and manufacturers. It does so by providing large amounts of funding to the domestic clean energy sector, paired with certain requirements for materials and technologies to be produced in the U.S.. But accelerating climate action is a big task, to say nothing of fostering economic fairness and opportunity in the process.

How can the Biden administration move forward on all these different priorities simultaneously? How will its domestic climate agenda impact the U.S. economy? And what is the role of industrial policy in a world undergoing an energy transition?

This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Heather Boushey about the nuances of the Biden administration’s domestic climate policy and how it fits into their broader economic plans. They also discuss what it means to use industrial policy in furtherance of the energy transition.  

Heather is currently a member of the Council of Economic Advisors for the Biden administration and chief economist to the Biden administration’s “Invest in America” cabinet. Heather works on domestic investment and implementation of infrastructure and clean energy laws. She previously co-founded the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, where she served as chief economist, president and CEO. She has also held the position of chief economist for the Center for American Progress. 

States’ net zero and clean-energy goals are requiring the electricity sector to reduce emissions. Getting there means building new renewable energy projects and then connecting them to cities. But the grid is congested and needs more capacity for renewables and secure power supplies. New transmission lines could solve that problem.

Private transmission developers are looking to build high-voltage, direct-current lines across multiple states. Among them is Michael Skelly. A decade ago, his company Clean Line Energy attempted to do this. Now he’s back with another venture, Grid United. 

More cross-country connections would boost reliability and help get more renewable energy online. However, addressing different regulatory environments, stakeholder interests, and landowners—an important part of the process—make interstate transmission hard to build. Even with these challenges, long distance projects have been making headway. 

So, why is it important to build transmission across the country? Why are private developers taking on the task? And what’s causing these projects to gain momentum in recent months?  

This week host Bill Loveless talks with Michael Skelly about the nation’s transmission needs and how the development landscape has changed over the years. They discuss why momentum is growing to build more multi-state lines. 

Michael is the founder and CEO of Grid United. The company is currently involved in the North Plains Corridor project, which would be the first transmission connection between three regional U.S. electric energy markets in the Midwest, West, and Southwest.

With Russian oil and gas deliveries a fraction of what they were before the war in Ukraine, Norway has emerged as a key source of energy. The state-owned energy company, Equinor, has helped expand oil and gas production to fill the gap left by Russia.

Meanwhile, the urgency of acting on climate change continues to grow. In the wake of Russia’s invasion, European governments and others are strengthening their renewable energy targets in a bid to tackle climate change and enhance their energy security. 

Equinor, with a strong renewables business, wants to be a leader in the energy transition.

What does the road ahead look like for a company like Equinor? And what does it tell us about where Europe is headed?

This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Anders Opedal about Equinor’s response to the war in Ukraine and the subsequent European energy crisis. They also discuss the company’s goal to reach net-zero by 2050. 

Anders has been the president and CEO of Equinor since August 2020. The energy company is responsible for 70% of oil and gas production in Norway and was instrumental in Norway becoming Europe’s largest source of natural gas.

When President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation on April 18, 1977, the U.S. was in a crisis. The Arab oil embargo of 1973 sent energy prices soaring, and four years later, the impacts were still rippling through the economy.

In his speech, President Carter called the crisis “the moral equivalent of war” and called on Americans to conserve energy. He outlined a plan to tackle the crisis, focusing on conservation, efficiency, and domestic technologies to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

President Carter signed energy legislation that created the U.S. Department of Energy, provided incentives for renewables and coal, deregulated oil and natural gas prices, and banned new power plants from using gas or oil. Some of these policies have had a lasting effect. Others drew criticism and were ultimately repealed.

So what is President Carter’s energy policy legacy? And how do the lessons of the ’70s help address energy challenges today?

This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Jay Hakes about how the energy crisis shaped Jimmy Carter’s presidency and the policies his administration enacted.

Jay is a scholar and author on U.S. energy policy. From 2000-2013 he served as the director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. He also served in both the Obama and  Clinton administrations, including a stint as director of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Jay is the author of the book Energy Crises: Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Hard Choices in the 1970s.

Western countries are once again trying to reduce their reliance on Russian resources. This time it’s nuclear fuel.

Russia accounts for a substantial share of both conversion and enrichment services worldwide. These two processes turn uranium into usable fuel. The war in Ukraine has raised concerns about supply disruptions – like shipping and payment, and government actions that could ban fuel imports.  

Still, the West has struggled to sever ties with Russia’s nuclear industry. Attempts at sanctions have faltered because of limited domestic capabilities to process uranium in the U.S and Europe. But as the war continues, the U.S., Europe and other nations are weighing options to make them less dependent on Russia's nuclear industry. 

So what are the alternatives to Russian conversion and enrichment services? How will changing supply chains impact the stability of the global nuclear fuel market?

This week host Bill Loveless talks with Jonathan Hinze and Bill Freebairn.

Jonathan is the president of UxC LLC, a market research and analysis company covering the nuclear industry. He has nearly two decades of experience working in the U.S. and Japan on technology development, international markets, and government policies.

Bill is a senior managing editor for S&P Global Commodity Insights, where he writes about nuclear plant construction and operation, regulatory developments, financial issues and uranium markets. He leads the Nucleonics Week publication, which is a source of global news for the commercial nuclear power business.

Both guests talk with Bill about how Russia came to dominate global nuclear fuel production and why it’s so difficult for other countries to find alternative supplies.

A push for stronger climate policy should unite Americans and Europeans. It might be raising trade tensions instead.

The Inflation Reduction Act was a signal that America is a serious player in global climate negotiations. European countries, however, worried the bill would be a threat to their domestic manufacturers and took their complaints directly to the Biden Administration.

The EU responded by proposing a Green Deal Industrial Plan, which will match American subsidies to clean-energy manufacturers. European officials are also pursuing a green tariff in 2026, which would tax imports of carbon-intensive goods. 

How will this transatlantic industrial arms race play out? And will it cause trade disputes between the U.S. and EU to escalate?

This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Noah Kaufman and Sagatom Saha.

Noah is an economist and research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy. He served as a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers under President Biden. He also served as the deputy associate director of energy and climate change at the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Obama.

Sagatom is an adjunct research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy and is an expert on the global energy transition and America’s competitiveness in clean energy technologies. He previously worked on cleantech competitiveness at the International Trade Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce, and served as an adviser to John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate. 

Noah, Sagatom, and two of their colleagues, Chris Bataille and Gautum Jain, recently published an article in The Conversation about how conflicting carbon tariffs could undermine climate efforts. Bill talks with them about the details of the U.S. and EU's domestic industrial policies, and why tensions are flaring between them.