Cheeky Pint with Casey Handmer of Terraform Industries: Solar Maximalism, Hard Tech, and Reclaiming the Salton Sea

Date: October 28, 2025
Host: Patrick Collison (Stripe cofounder, referred to by some as John)
Guest: Casey Handmer, founder of Terraform Industries

Episode Overview

This Cheeky Pint episode features an engaging conversation with Casey Handmer, an eclectic founder, writer, and "solar maximalist," whose company Terraform Industries is transforming sunlight and CO₂ into synthetic natural gas. Over a (non-alcoholic) pint, Patrick Collison and Casey dive deep into the future of energy, the lessons from forgotten industrialists, American manufacturing, techno-optimism, desalination, and why the Salton Sea could be a grand experiment in megaprojects.

The episode blends Casey’s radical optimism for technology—especially solar—with practical challenges and thorny economic and policy issues facing climate tech and U.S. infrastructure.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Fall and Promise of Big, Hard Tech

• Casey’s Origin Story:
  • Casey left academia for engineering at Hyperloop, only to conclude, “Is hyperloop ever going to happen? No, I think I can safely say that now." ([01:19])
  • Hyperloop’s challenge wasn’t tech, but the astronomical cost of tunneling across the U.S. — moving that much rock makes it “just too expensive.”
  • Memorable Quote: “Of all the known unknowns, they basically were able to solve them...it was this weird subtlety that ended up, if I may say, derailing the whole project, which is that the faster you go, the further you want to be away from the surface of the earth.” ([01:19])

2. Lessons from Henry Kaiser and Industrial Tinkerers

• Henry Kaiser, the Underappreciated Builder:
  • Casey recounts Kaiser’s life: from school dropout and photo shop owner to dam, ship, aircraft, and car magnate.
  • Key Traits: Insane work ethic, first-principles thinking, no fear in jumping industries, and empowering autonomous executives.
  • Industrial Legacy: Founded Kaiser Permanente, built Grand Coulee and Hoover Dams, Liberty Ships, and revolutionized U.S. shipbuilding.
  • Notable Quote: “He seemed to keep jumping to new technical challenges, all of them with the attitude that it's not that hard, it's only physics. You know, we can learn it.” (Patrick, [05:05])
  • Succession Problem: Kaiser’s empire declined after his death due to poor succession planning.
• Hardware vs. Software Entrepreneurs:
  • Hardware builders—like Kaiser, Musk, Hughes—see ‘engineering’ as broadly applicable across domains, echoing Casey’s own multidisciplinary ethos.

3. The Terraform Industries Vision: Synthetic Fuels from Sunlight

• What Terraform Builds:

  • Machines that plug into solar arrays and produce natural gas from atmospheric carbon and water ([08:55]).
  • The Chemistry: Extract CO₂ from air, H₂ from water, convert both into hydrocarbons (methane/methanol) using known industrial processes.
  • Why Now: Solar is now so cheap, it’s economical to reverse combustion and “burn sunlight”—making hydrocarbons from air.
  • Quote: “If you need sun, you go outside. But if you need oil, you have to be friends with Saudi Arabia… But everywhere people live, there’s enough sun.” ([10:01])

• Synthetic Fuels vs. Electrification:

  • Casey projects nearly all ground vehicles will go electric; aviation and heavy shipping will require dense hydrocarbon fuels for decades.
  • “Wouldn't it be amazing if aviation…grew by 20 or 50x…and that by itself would more than use all the oil that humanity currently uses. So…high-speed transportation will stay fueled.” ([13:49])
  • Aviation should expand to everyone, not just elites.

• Market Economics:

  • “At the end of the day, the market will decide.” ([13:45])
  • Synthetic fuels are only viable atop the world’s cheapest solar electricity.

4. Solar Maximalism and Cost Curves

• The Solar Learning Curve:

  • Panel costs drop ~40% for every doubling of production—currently every two years.
  • Solar will transform energy and industries as fundamentally as computing did.
  • Objection: Installation/other costs aren't falling as fast, but Casey argues those costs follow as the fundamental commodity (the panel) gets cheaper, just like the transistor/PC market.

• Solar Deployment and Simplicity:

  • “We should have deleted trackers in 2016…as the panels became cheaper, just put more of them down, don’t bother having them follow the sun.” ([19:42])
  • Casey believes further exponential price drops are coming; physics allows for at least a 10x cost reduction beyond today.

• Policy Barriers & Recommendations:

  • Single biggest unlock: “By-right development of solar panels on private land. And ideally, even…on BLM [federal] land.” ([35:36])
  • Permitting should be easier for solar than for polluting infrastructure.

5. Subsidies, Industrial Policy, and China

• Role of Subsidies:
  • German solar subsidies made a difference but didn’t deliver lasting rewards to Germany.
  • China’s industrial subsidies (zero-interest loans, cheap capital) “enormously” accelerated global solar scale-up ([28:49]).
    • “China has deployed more solar in the last three months than the US has ever deployed ever.”
  • Patrick: “Silicon Valley tends to have this libertarian bent… But it seems like top-down government intervention was impactful in bringing solar to us sooner.”
• Industrial Policy:
  • Casey: U.S. has good business environment; some industrial policy is helpful, but “raising taxes to spend more money on DOE picking winners” probably distorts the market ([34:03]).
  • Cheap energy is a decisive advantage for nations: “countries that have cheap energy can afford to screw up a lot of things and they’re still basically…prosperous.” ([34:05])

6. American Manufacturing and Techno-Optimism

• Can the U.S. Compete in Manufacturing?

  • Casey: “The idea…that the United States should just be intrinsically bad...at certain kinds of things is crap. It has every advantage it can possibly want.” ([38:23])
  • Automation and high-value products are beachheads for scaling up U.S. manufacturing (see: SpaceX, Starlink, Hadrian, Impulse).
  • Lessons from Apple—what if $100B of manufacturing investment went to the U.S.?

• On Elon Musk and Hard Tech:

  • Patrick asks why so many SpaceX alumni fail to recreate its magic.
  • Casey: Being “hard-edged” is necessary in hardware, much more so than in software; “Success is mandatory.”
  • Even successful tinkerers make enemies: “I’d be more surprised if there was someone who had succeeded as well as Elon had…who was better liked.” ([41:54])
  • Casey learned to become a more direct and demanding leader after starting his own manufacturing company.

7. Leadership, Talent, and Advice to Young Builders

• Casey on Leadership:
  • Leadership through service: org charts drawn upside down, "the problems flow downhill." ([68:20])
  • You can't coach your way out of everything. “Success is mandatory. I don’t really care that much about how you go about succeeding...We’re going to force you to succeed.” ([71:20])
  • Failing fast and honestly is better for everyone than stalling careers out of kindness.
• Advice to Young Talent:
  • Take on challenges early, don’t "fail to launch."
  • “It's more important that you get a job, and you kill it, do really, really well straight out of school.”
  • Go where the best people are; stick it out for a couple of years even if it’s hard ([46:27])

8. Desalination, Water, and the Salton Sea Vision

• Terraform's Next Act: Desalination
  • Casey is experimenting with thermal desalination (distillation) that could run on intermittent solar, potentially for $99/acre-foot—transformational for California ([57:48]).
  • The main barriers are regulatory (e.g., California Coastal Commission), not technical.
  • “California has more coastline on the west coast than any other state…so why are we short on water? It’s right there.” ([57:31])
• The Salton Sea Megaproject:
  • Casey proposes a bold renewal: refill the Salton Sea, stabilize its environment, and leverage the parent economic value of 110 new miles of coastline (greater than San Francisco Bay).
  • Local land value appreciation could pay for it.
    • “It's in a state of neglect, really. We could restore it…unlock enormous economic value for people who need a place to live… build it into a new city.” ([63:13])

Memorable Quotes & Stand-out Exchanges

• On Solar Maximalism:

  “The solar wave is exponential, right? People are really bad at like understanding where they sit on an exponential curve and then correctly projecting into the future.” — Casey, [00:11]

• On Energy Density and Aircraft:

  “Jet fuel I think is two orders of magnitude…more energy dense by unit weight than batteries. And so it'll be a while before you can build the battery powered 777.” — Patrick, [14:41]

• On Combining Solar and Synthetic Fuels:

  “Everywhere…that people live has enough sun…if you can grow enough food to survive, you can synthesize enough fuel to run your modern industrial economy.” — Casey, [10:01]

• On American Manufacturing:

  “There’s no reason you can’t compete. Obviously, your factors of production are different…but…the United States should just be intrinsically bad or uncompetitive at certain kinds of things… It has every advantage it can possibly want.” — Casey, [38:23]

• On Leadership:

  “You can't coach your way out of everything…nothing is worse for your career than sitting in a job failing for a year because you don’t have the guts to quit and your manager won't fire you…Success is mandatory. I don't really care that much about how you go about succeeding…We're going to force you to succeed.” — Casey, [71:18; 71:20]

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:11 | Solar exponential progress and the Salton Sea proposal | | 01:19 | Why Hyperloop won’t happen (and the cost of tunneling) | | 02:28-07:36 | Lessons from Henry Kaiser; underappreciated industrialists | | 08:55 | What Terraform Industries does — solar to synthetic fuel | | 10:01-14:41 | Energy density, synthetic fuels, and future of electrification | | 15:51-20:10 | Solar learning curves, system simplicity, and hardware innovation | | 28:49-31:46 | China’s solar subsidies and US/China energy policy | | 35:36 | How to accelerate US solar deployment: deregulated land use | | 38:23-41:40 | US manufacturing, SpaceX, Hadrian, American advantage | | 41:54-44:44 | Elon, SpaceX alumni, hard tech demands | | 46:24-47:37 | Advice to young technical talent | | 55:28-59:27 | Terraform’s desalination push; innovations for California’s water needs | | 61:05-64:58 | Reclaiming the Salton Sea: Megaproject vision | | 68:20-71:20 | Leadership lessons at Terraform, demand for results |

Notable, Surprising, or Entertaining Moments

• On direct air capture and reverse combustion:
  “It's like burning wood, which is technically carbon neutral. So it's like that helps on the climate front in that you can create an economic forcing function around going and sourcing our entire civilizations carbon from the air rather than from the crust.” ([10:01])

• Casey’s critique of US industrial myth:

  “The idea…that the United States should just be intrinsically bad at certain things is crap.” ([38:23])

• On government and solar:

  “China has deployed more solar in the last three months than the United States has ever deployed ever. They're becoming electrostate.” ([28:53])

• Casey’s radical Salton Sea proposal:
  “You put another 3 million acre feet of water in the Salton Sea, bring it back up to its historical...level, stabilize the level, stabilize the salinity, build a canal...start building gigantic hyperdrive cities around the edge.” ([61:20])

Tone and Atmosphere

The conversation is lively, informal, and occasionally mischievous, laced with historical asides and first-principles speculation. Collison and Handmer riff with candor, mutual respect, and humor—often veering from solar panel economics into political strategy or the personal costs of innovation. Casey’s irreverence and immense ambition shine through, particularly regarding mega-infrastructure, climate tech, and American potential.

Closing Thoughts

Casey Handmer makes the case for unbounded optimism, hard engineering, and a willingness to bet big on hardware and infrastructure. The episode leaves listeners with a call to action—for governments to clear regulatory barriers, for more technical founders to tackle impossible challenges, and for a renewed civic aspiration matching the feats of the Henry Kaisers of the past.

For those interested in energy, climate tech, or American dynamism, this episode is a must-listen for its combination of vision, candor, and real-world hardware experience.