Shows / Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Every week, Heatmap News Executive Editor Robinson Meyer and a guest make sense of the biggest shift of our time -- navigating the energy transition away from fossil fuels. Drawing on their years of experience reporting on and researching climate change and decarbonization, Meyer and his partners unpack the most important issues of the week and how the impacts of climate change and efforts to address it are transforming our economy, politics, and society at large. Music by Adam Kromelow.
Hosted…
Episodes
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How the Permitting Reform Bill’s Best Stuff Works
Climate and environmental advocates are sharply divided over the Senate’s bipartisan permitting reform proposal. But what most people agree is that the bill’s…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Weird State-Level Races That Matter for Climate Change
Every midterm, the focus is on Congress — and for good reason. But in two weeks, Americans will vote on a number of state races that will matter immensely to…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Should Climate Activists Keep Fighting Fossil Fuel Infrastructure?
No researcher has been more cited in lawsuits against fossil fuel infrastructure than Peter Erickson. As an affiliated researcher at the Stockholm Environment…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Tesla Alum Trying to Turn GM Into an American Battery Juggernaut
There are two big trends in the American battery sector at the moment. The first is that the electric vehicle market is deteriorating. GM, for instance, sold…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Governor Mikie Sherrill on Electricity Prices, Nuclear Power, and Building in New Jersey
Governor Mikie Sherrill is a former Navy pilot, federal prosecutor, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was elected New Jersey's governor in…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Al Gore on AI, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ and the Biggest Surprises of the Past 20 Years
Former Vice President Al Gore needs no introduction. He is, in a way, the original climate influencer. His film An Inconvenient Truth gave rise to a new wave…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Trump’s Pro-Nuclear, Pro-Fossil Fuel Agenda
Since taking office last year, the Trump administration has blocked renewable energy development and attacked climate change policy, prioritized fossil fuels…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What Does The Nuclear Company Do?
In the past few years, something surprising has happened in American energy policy: States and utilities have started trying to build new nuclear plants. A new…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Starting a Giant Online Data Platform Is the Easy Part
America has some of the world’s best data about its own internal energy, industrial economy, and carbon emissions. That’s thanks to a federal agency called the…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Shift Key Classic: What Is a Watt?
As we catch up from summer vacation, we’re bringing you a favorite from the Shift Key archive. We’ll be back in your feed with more fresh episodes starting…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How to Understand America’s Gigantic Natural Gas Buildout
The United States is staring down a natural gas buildout of gigantic proportions. Amazon wants to build what would be the country’s largest power plant in…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Trump’s Clean Energy Repeal Was Even More Costly Than We Thought
Two years ago, Donald Trump made an outlandish campaign promise: He would cut Americans’ power bills in half. It was a ridiculous, impossible pledge — but even…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Who Pays for Wildfire Prevention? If You’re in California, You Do — in Your Power Bill.
California now has the most expensive electricity in the continental United States. It also has expensive housing … and an increasingly broken home insurance…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why This El Niño Looks Like a Monster
Every few years, the Pacific Ocean’s surface waters become especially warm near the equator, a climatic phenomenon known as El Niño. El Niño is a normal part…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Big — But Fixable! — Problems in America’s R&D Ecosystem
At this point, when you hear “venture capitalist,” you probably think of … software. Or artificial intelligence. Or cryptocurrency. The Engine Ventures, which…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Permitting Reform, Data Centers, and More With Senator Heinrich and Secretary Granholm
The Democratic Party’s climate and energy policy is at a difficult moment. Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has attacked solar and wind…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What a Permitting Reform Deal Could Look Like
There’s really one one good thing that could happen this year in Congress for clean energy: permitting reform. If lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal on the…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What Barbecue Sauce Has in Common With Carbon Removal
Charm Industrial is a climate tech company that takes biomass and converts it into a heavy, carbon-rich oil that can be injected underground, transmuting and…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Company That’s Raised $60 Million to Geoengineer the Planet
For more than 30 years, a heterodox group of scientists have proposed injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The New Paper Arguing Biden’s Power Sector Emissions Cuts Are Largely Intact — Even Under Trump
Wait, is the climate policy landscape … in better shape than it looks? Just over a year ago, President Trump passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It repealed…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why Meta’s Longtime CTO Is Investing in Climate Tech
It has been a hard few years for climate tech. But we recently got a bright spot: Earlier this month, Gigascale Capital announced it had raised $250 million to…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How China Saved the World From Trump’s Energy Crisis
When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year, experts projected oil prices would go to $200 a barrel. But then… they didn’t. In fact, while gasoline…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Anthropic and the Future of the Buzzy Carbon Removal Buyer's Club
One of the most interesting projects in carbon removal is doubling down on the industry. Frontier — a coalition of tech, finance, and fashion firms that buy…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Other, Other Big Race in Georgia This Year
Last year, progressives pulled off their biggest state-level win in Georgia in 20 years when voters elected two Democrats to the state’s Public Service…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Affordability Politics Took On New York’s Climate Law — and Won
When New York passed its first major climate law in 2019, climate advocates hailed the work as a milestone: The Empire State vowed to cut its carbon emissions…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Nvidia’s Case for Why AI Will Cut Emissions
From Heatmap: Exclusive: Local Opposition to Data Centers Explodes in 2026America’s tech companies are transforming the electricity system — building entirely…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How Los Angeles Cleaned Up the World’s Air Pollution
We live in a time of unheralded environmental victories. Dolphins and whales swim in New York and San Francisco harbors. Lead has been eliminated globally in…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
This Year’s Beijing Auto Show Has a Lesson for Trump
The Beijing Auto Show is now the world’s largest auto show — and its most important. It’s where China’s automakers show off their new innovations and newest…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What’s Truly Baffling About the Strait of Hormuz Energy Crisis
he Strait of Hormuz has been closed for months. Yet oil is trading — at least as of late Tuesday — at under $110 a barrel. Why haven’t the markets responded…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What Has All This Back-and-Forth Climate Legislating Bought Us?
When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, researchers estimated it would cut U.S. carbon pollution by more than 40% by the mid-2030s. Then…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Big Interview: John Arnold
If you work around climate or clean energy, you probably know about John Arnold. Although he began his career as a natural gas trader, Arnold has since become…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Some Great News About the Global Electricity System
Here’s some good news: Clean power met all electricity demand growth last year for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s according to a new report…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Everything We Didn't Know About the World’s Buzziest Geothermal Startup
Fervo Energy has become a darling of the clean energy industry by using workers and technology from the oil and gas sector to unlock zero-carbon, all-day…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why Microsoft’s Carbon Removal Pullback Is Such a Big Deal
For the past few years, Microsoft has basically carried the carbon removal industry on its shoulders. The software company has purchased 72 million tons of…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why the Iran Ceasefire Hasn’t Ended the Energy Crisis
The United States and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire in Iran, and energy markets responded with jubilation — at least initially. Every major Wall Street index…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How Utilities Actually Think
How do utilities decide what they want — and need — to build? It’s one of the most important problems driving the data center and clean energy conversations…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
A New Look at Why Electricity Prices Have Gone Up in Your ZIP Code
Electricity prices rose faster than overall inflation last year. Yet at the local level, it’s been difficult to know why. Is it data centers? Renewables? Aging…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
There’s a New Playbook for Cutting Power Prices
Since Democrats swept to statewide victories in Georgia and New Jersey last year by campaigning against high power prices, “electricity affordability” has been…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Oil Industry Will Never Be the Same
We are now nearly a month into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The conflict has lasted much longer than some energy experts initially expected — and it has built…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Big Reveal in China’s New Five-Year Plan
The new draft of China’s five year plan is here, and the news isn’t all good for climate advocates. Although China vows to expand its gigantic “clean energy…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Rivian R2 Couldn’t Have Come at a Better Time
Last week saw what is likely the biggest U.S. electric vehicle launch of the year: the Rivian R2, which will go on sale this spring. It’s absurdly well-timed…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
A New Theory About Why Biden’s Big Climate Law Failed
When President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in 2022, Democrats imagined he was setting a new policy feedback loop in motion. Voters…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
A Tale of Two Energy Shocks
We’re watching a new global energy crisis unfold in the wake of America and Israel’s campaign in Iran — and it could rapidly spiral into other industries and…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why the Iran War Is a Warning for Natural Gas
The United States and Israel have launched a devastating new war on Iran. What has happened so far, when could it end, and what could it mean for oil, gas, and…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Peril of Talking About Electricity Affordability
As electricity affordability has risen in the public consciousness, so too has it gone up the priority list for climate groups — although many of their…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Data Centers Are Creating a New Kind of Battery Monster
Just a handful of tech companies plan to spend nearly $700 billion combined this year investing in artificial intelligence — and much of that money will go to…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What the Supreme Court’s Tariff Ruling Means for the Energy Transition
The Supreme Court just struck down President Trump’s most ambitious tariff plan. What does that ruling mean for clean energy? For the data center boom? For…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Outdated Economics Driving Trump’s Car Standards Rollback
President Donald Trump has essentially killed all fuel economy rules on cars and trucks in the United States. By the end of the year, automakers will face…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Trump’s Assault on the Clean Air Act and What Happens Next
Rob is joined by Jody Freeman, the director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School, to discuss the Trump administration’s war on the…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Power Grid Just Passed Its Biggest Test in Years
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse announce some news about the show — and also debrief on how the Northeastern U.S. power grid performed…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What Senator Martin Heinrich Needs to See in a Permitting Deal
Rob talks to Senator Martin Heinrich about whether Republicans and Democrats will reach a permitting reform deal this year. They chat about what Democrats…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Trump’s Most Self-Defeating Move on Rare Minerals
President Trump announced on Monday that the U.S. would create a domestic stockpile of critical minerals for civilian use — essentially a Strategic Petroleum…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What the China-Canada EV Trade Deal Really Means
It’s been a huge few weeks for the electric vehicle industry — at least in North America. After a major trade deal, Canada is set to import tens of thousands…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why America’s Climate Emissions Surged in 2025
America’s estimated greenhouse gas emissions rose by 2.4% last year — which is a big deal since they had been steady or falling in 2023 and 2024. More…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Heatmap’s Annual Climate Insiders Survey Is Here
Every year, Heatmap asks dozens of climate scientists, officials, and business leaders the same set of questions. It’s an act of temperature-taking we call our…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why Trump’s Oil Imperialism Might Be a Tough Sell for Actual Oil Companies
Over the weekend, the U.S. military entered Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife. Maduro will now face drug and gun charges in…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Shift Key Classic: California’s Rooftop Solar Question
Shift Key is off for the holidays, but we hope you’ll enjoy this classic episode. Rooftop solar is four times more expensive in America than it is in other…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Biggest Energy and Climate Stories of 2026
2025 has been a rough year for climate and energy news. But enough about that. Let’s start looking at 2026! On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Say ‘Guten Tag!’ to This New Kind of Geothermal Tech
Over the past decade, the oil and gas industry has sharpened its drilling skills, extracting fossil fuels at greater depths — and with more precision — than…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why the Rest of the World Is Buying Chinese EVs
China’s electric vehicle industry, it’s now well understood, is churning out cars that rival or exceed the best products coming out of the West. Chinese EVs…