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.
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Episodes
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Are Democrats the Party of Nuclear Now?
Over the past two months, the country’s biggest tech companies have announced a flurry of deals with advanced and conventional nuclear companies. At the same…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Talking Permitting Reform, Trade, and More With Biden’s Top Climate Advisor
What’s next for the Biden administration — and for climate policy in the United States? Should Democrats negotiate with Republicans over permitting reform…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Want to Decarbonize Your Life? Here’s How.
How can you fight climate change in your daily life? Last month, Heatmap published our attempt at answering that question: Called Decarbonize Your Life, it’s a…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How Climate Change Shaped Hurricane Helene
This is a special Hurricane Helene edition of Shift Key. Our regular programming will resume next week. Nearly a week after Hurricane Helene made landfall, we…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Local Elections That Matter for Decarbonization
In just over a month, America will elect hundreds of thousands of people to state, county, and municipal offices. While those elections might lack the…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Hardest Working $27 Billion in the IRA
It’s potentially one of the most important — but least understood — provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, and it’s finally out in the world. Last month…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why Geothermal Is So Hot Right Now
Geothermal is getting closer to the big time. Last week, Fervo Energy — arguably the country’s leading enhanced geothermal company — announced that its Utah…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
A Beginner’s Guide to the Interconnection Queue
Maybe you’ve never heard of it. Maybe you know it too well. But to a certain type of clean energy wonk, it amounts to perhaps the three most dreaded words in…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What 2024 Will Mean for Clean Energy — in Megatons
You don’t need us to say it: The 2024 election will have enormous stakes for America’s climate policy and the planet’s climate. But how well can we quantify…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How 2025 Could Reshape Climate Policy — No Matter Who Wins the Election
It’s time to start talking about a big year for climate politics and policy: 2025. No matter who wins this fall’s elections, next year’s executive and…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
This Isn’t the Same Kind of Climate Election
Democrats are gathering in Chicago this week for their quadrennial convention and to celebrate Kamala Harris’s nomination for president. This year’s convention…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why Treasury’s No. 2 Official Wants Permitting Reform
Two years ago this week, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in clean energy and climate mitigation in American…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Humanity’s Most Abundant Material Is a Huge Climate Problem
The world uses about 30 billion tons of concrete every year — more than any other material except water. It is the most ubiquitous human-made substance in the…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How to Decarbonize the World’s Biggest Ships
Shipping is the backbone of the modern economy. At least 80% of all goods worldwide are shipped as ocean cargo, and the global economy rises and falls on the…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What the Supreme Court’s Rulings Mean for Climate Change
Jesse is on vacation until August, so this is a special, Rob-only summer episode of Shift Key. Over the past few weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has profoundly…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How Europe and America Are Weatherproofing Climate Policy
Jesse is on vacation until August, so this is a special, Rob-only summer episode of Shift Key. — The far right is rising across Europe. The global order seems…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
America’s Nuclear Policy Is Getting … Pretty Good!
Congress just passed perhaps its biggest support for zero-carbon energy since the Inflation Reduction Act. The ADVANCE Act, which the Senate adopted…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How China’s EV Industry Got So Big
China’s electric vehicle industry has driven itself to the center of the global conversation. Its automakers produce dozens of affordable, technologically…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How to Fix Electricity Bills in America
Have you looked at your power bill — like, really looked at it? If you’re anything like Rob, you pay whatever number appears at the bottom every month and drop…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How California Broke Its Electricity Bills
Rooftop solar is four times more expensive in America than it is in other countries. It’s also good for the climate. Should we even care about its high cost?…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How to Unlock Super Cheap Rooftop Solar
Why isn’t rooftop solar cheaper in America? In Australia in 2024, a standard rooftop system can cost as little as $0.90 per watt. In the U.S., a similar system…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
It Was a Big Week for the Power Grid
Transmission has been one of the biggest obstacles of decarbonizing the power grid in America. In the past week, however, the country has taken two big steps…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Elon Musk Is Putting the EV Transition in Peril
Tesla is now facing its worst crisis in years. Last week, CEO Elon Musk laid off the automaker’s roughly 500-person Supercharger team and what remained of its…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The EPA’s Carbon Crackdown Is Finally Here
One of the most important pieces of the Biden administration’s climate policy has arrived: On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
How Jigar Shah Thinks About Risk
Jigar Shah might have more control over America’s new wave of industrial policy — not to mention its climate policy — than anyone not named Joe Biden. And he’s…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The U.S. Has a Tesla Problem
It isn’t just bad vibes: Electric vehicle sales are slumping in the United States. Fewer than 300,000 EVs were sold nationwide during the first three months of…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Is This a New Era of ‘Climate Capitalism’?
Can capitalism solve climate change? Wrong question, argues the author and journalist Akshat Rathi: In fact, you can’t solve climate change without capitalism…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
A Skeptic’s Take on AI and Energy Growth
Will the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence break the climate system? In recent months, utilities and tech companies have argued that soaring…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Why a Climate Startup Is Building the World’s Biggest Airplane
Radia is a $1 billion climate tech startup with an unusual pitch: It is trying to build the world’s largest airplane. Its proposed aircraft, the Radia Wind…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
What the New Rivians Say About the Future of EVs
Earlier this month, the electric-car maker Rivian announced its new SUV, the R2 — a $45,000 family hauler that will get more than 300 miles in range. It also…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
A Conversation With Biden’s Former Top Economic Advisor, Part 2
Few people have shaped Bidenomics more than Brian Deese. From 2021 to 2023, Deese led the National Economic Council at the White House, serving as President…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
A Conversation With Biden’s Former Top Economic Advisor, Part 1
Few people have shaped Bidenomics more than Brian Deese. From 2021 to 2023, Deese led the National Economic Council at the White House, serving as President…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Does Rooftop Solar Actually Help the Climate?
For a few weeks now, Heatmap’s staff writer, Emily Pontecorvo, has been trying to figure out if installing rooftop solar panels on your home actually reduces…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Next Big Climate Tool: Little Chunks of Rock
When we talk about carbon removal, we often focus on “direct air capture” facilities — big factories that suck carbon dioxide out of the ambient air. But a…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Is Biden’s Climate Law Actually Working?
A year and a half ago, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate law in American history — and arguably in world history. But is…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
Has Offshore Wind Finally Hit Rock Bottom?
It has been a catastrophic 12 months for offshore wind in the U.S. Large projects have been canceled, and Orsted, the world’s biggest offshore wind developer…
- Shift Key with Robinson Meyer
The Messy Truth of America’s Natural Gas Exports
Last month, President Biden announced the federal government would temporarily stop approving new export terminals for liquified natural gas. The move was…
Shift Key with Robinson MeyerWelcome to Shift Key, a new climate podcast from Heatmap News
Every week, Heatmap News Executive Editor Robinson Meyer and Princeton University Professor and energy systems expert Jesse Jenkins, make sense of the biggest…