Energy Gang’s year in review: the highs, the lows, the people and the technologies of 2025

Summary

Energy Gang: Year in Review 2025 – The Highs, The Lows, The People, and The Technologies

Podcast: Wood Mackenzie's Energy Gang
Host: Ed Crooks (Vice-Chairman, Wood Mackenzie)
Guests: Dr. Melissa Lott (Microsoft), Shanu Mathew (Investor), Amy Myers Jaffe (NYU)
Date: December 18, 2025

---

Episode Overview

The Energy Gang’s final episode of 2025 revisits the defining moments, people, and technologies that shaped energy and climate issues over the past year. Under the guidance of Ed Crooks, the panel offers a spirited, deeply informed roundtable on grid transformation, permitting reform, explosive growth in energy storage, the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on power demand and society, and the evolving geopolitics of the clean energy transition. With authenticity and wit, the gang navigates both high points and persistent challenges from the perspective of practitioners, analysts, and policy insiders.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. 2025’s High Points in Energy

[03:00–13:19]

• Bipartisan Breakthrough on Permitting Reform
  Ed Crooks: “There is now very broad agreement...a real momentum behind actually doing something about that, passing legislation.” (04:13)

  • Congratulates unlikely alliances — for example, America’s Clean Power (renewables) and the American Petroleum Institute (fossil fuels) uniting behind the “Speed Act.”
  • Warns optimism could be short-lived if politics block progress.

• AI and Compute Flexibility: The Year of the Data Center
  Shanu Mathew: “The highlight was the emergence of compute flexibility...grids can really benefit from data centers in a way if compute is flexible.” (05:10)

  • Data centers are increasingly seen as flexible energy users (“bring your own capacity”), beneficial to grids if managed smartly — a sharp turnaround in industry thinking.
  • Noted major pilot projects (Google with TVA, AI-led pilots).

• Electricity Replaces Gasoline – Reliability and Investment
  Amy Myers Jaffe: “Electricity is the new gasoline...debate about what brings reliability.” (07:17)

  • Notable: Constellation’s $26B acquisition of Calpine to guarantee reliable supply.
  • Improved grid performance: No major blackouts in the US, with batteries and virtual power plants (VPPs) credited.
  • Public debate has shifted: “Where does my energy come from? Where will my bills come from?” (09:40–10:05)

• Record Battery Deployment
  Melissa Lott: “My brain just exploded with how big that number is...just over 10 gigawatts...this year...about 18.2 gigawatts of utility scale battery storage.” (10:52)

  • Utility-scale battery capacity doubled, driven by price drops and need for grid flexibility.
  • Consensus: Battery storage transitions from theory to practical, widespread deployment.

---

2. Low Points and “Hopes for the Future”

[13:19–18:29]

• Supply Chain Disruptions and Geopolitics

  • Amy Myers Jaffe: The “big beautiful bill” (a new, Trump-era policy) preserved battery tax credits but left unresolved “Foreign Entities of Concern” (FEOC/FIAC) restrictions that complicate reliance on Chinese components. (14:18)
  • Growing risk: Too much of the supply chain is still Chinese — and policy changes ahead could disrupt plans.
  • Melissa Lott: “I’m not going to call it a lowlight. I’m going to call it a hope for the future: more rapid progress on robust, diversified supply chains.” (16:52)

• Clarity Needed on Tax Credits and Policy
  Shanu Mathew: “Storage set to boom if FIAC allows it…in terms of the capital and velocity of deployment is the certainty around the tax credits and how they're defined.” (17:50)

---

3. Person of the Year

[18:29–33:03]

• Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI) – Shanu Mathew’s pick
  “He singlehandedly pushed us to evolve...by virtue of him striking so many deals, it started to bring the question of: how does this actually get done? We’re talking trillions of dollars.” (18:54, paraphrased)

  • Sparked “execution over hype” conversations about the real power, financial needs, and practicality of massive new AI data center proposals.

• Gary Marcus (cognitive science, NYU) – Amy Myers Jaffe

  • Counter-voice on AI hype, skeptical that current “large language models” (LLMs) are the path to true artificial general intelligence (AGI).
  • Marcus’s critiques gain traction as AI models’ “hallucinations” persist. (20:18–21:50)

• Fatih Birol (Executive Director, IEA) – Melissa Lott’s choice

  • For cutting through noise, repeatedly refocusing on facts: “Let me tell you what the numbers say.” (24:01)
  • Cited for key reports on workforce and data center energy use; for prioritizing skills and practical pathways.
  • Runner up: Katharine Hayhoe (atmospheric scientist and climate communicator), for her clarity and accessibility.

• Kathy Hochul (Governor, New York) – Ed Crooks

  • For leading congestion pricing policy: “A measurable drop in congestion and pollution...foot traffic to businesses up...a great policy.” (26:19)
  • Backed offshore wind, defended nuclear, and supported a key NY gas pipeline — praised for pragmatic, evidence-based leadership.
  • Melissa Lott: Study showed a 22% drop in PM2.5 particulates in Manhattan, with direct impacts on public health. (32:00)

---

4. Technology of the Year

[35:03–49:24]

• AI Tools for Every Domain
  Shanu Mathew: “Nano Banana 3” (Google) and “Claude Code” (Anthropic’s coding model)
  - AI is now doing high-level research summarization (converting technical reports into 5-min videos and infographics), and even complex interactive data dashboard creation with zero code required — huge leap for productivity and accessibility. (35:03–37:28)

  Amy Myers Jaffe (caution): Teaching with LLMs exposed difficulty for beginners; greatest value still when user already knows the field. (37:28–39:50)

• Nuclear: AP1000 vs. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)

  • Ed Crooks: “AP1000 is the only real nuclear reactor with any kind of future in the United States…” (40:02)
    • Praises practical deployment and firm commitments
  • Amy Myers Jaffe: “Everyone’s talking about SMRs. … Even people who never considered nuclear are talking about SMRs.” (41:49)
    • Points to buzz and new international projects
  • Melissa Lott: “Different horses for courses…both are valuable…[SMRs offer] potential to do things AP1000 isn’t set up to do.” (43:33–45:37)
    • The debate underscores the big distinction between currently deployable vs. “possible future star” technologies.

• Battery Chemistry Innovations

  • Melissa Lott: Highlights Enlightene Energy’s sodium/iron batteries — offering complementary chemistries to lithium and new supply chain pathways. (48:19)

• AI for Permitting

  • Idaho National Lab’s partnership with Microsoft Azure is streamlining safety analysis and permitting using AI — “accelerating how we build energy projects.” (48:19–49:24)

---

5. Wildcards & Free Electrons

[50:13–56:55]

• Investment Fads and Failures:
  Ed Crooks: Notes Fermi’s Texas data center/power hybrid’s IPO deflating by 74% in 3 months — foreshadowing painful shakeouts in energy/AI. (50:13)

• Robotic AVs & Home Robots
  Amy Myers Jaffe: “2025 was the year when Avoided [Autonomous Vehicles] started getting momentum…and toward the end of the year, people started talking about commercial robots.” (53:48)

  • As electrification extends to “robotic everything,” electricity demand and the grid’s role will radically increase.

• Book Picks

  • Melissa Lott: “The Borderless Healthcare Revolution,” exploring links between energy, AI, and medical access and equity. (51:57)
  • Shanu Mathew: “Five Types of Wealth” (Sahil Bloom), a philosophical reset for energy people at year’s end. (56:10)

---

6. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Battery Storage Growth
  Melissa Lott: “My brain just exploded with how big that number is…10 gigawatts…this year about 18.2 gigawatts…” (11:00–11:10)

• On AI Changing Industry Focus
  Shanu Mathew: “Now we’re execution focused versus just saying the biggest numbers” about the shift in AI data center development. (19:44)

• On Pragmatic Leadership
  Amy Myers Jaffe:
  “We need to govern in reality. As governor, a top priority is to make sure the lights and heat stay on for all New Yorkers…” (29:58)

• On Public Health Impact
  Melissa Lott: “If I was living in those areas and had a child with asthma, I might...see a drop in critical acute asthma attacks...” (31:10)

---

7. Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:13] – Permitting reform
• [05:05] – Data center flexibility & AI
• [07:17] – Electricity reliability & Constellation-Calpine deal
• [10:52] – Explosive growth in battery storage
• [14:18] – “Big beautiful bill” and FIAC/FEOC on supply chains
• [18:38] – Person of the year begins
• [24:01] – Fatih Birol’s impact
• [26:19] – Kathy Hochul & New York congestion pricing
• [32:00] – Measurable public health outcomes from congestion pricing
• [35:03] – Technology of the year segment
• [40:02] – Nuclear: AP1000 vs. SMRs debate
• [48:19] – Sodium/iron batteries and AI in permitting
• [50:13] – Fermi’s IPO flop and investment exuberance
• [53:48] – Rise of AVs and robots
• [56:10] – Book picks and philosophical year-end notes

---

Tone and Style

The conversation maintains a collegial and slightly irreverent tone, balancing hard data with true “energy nerd” enthusiasm. Speakers are candid about uncertainty and future risks, but return consistently to pragmatic optimism about innovation and policy progress — with room for honest debate. Friendly ribbing and personal recommendations add warmth and relatability.

---

Conclusion

The Energy Gang’s 2025 year in review reveals a sector on the cusp of historic transformation: new alliances, record tech deployments, and a public dialogue more engaged than ever — but not without complex policy, supply chain, and AI-driven disruption ahead. The episode is a call for creative, evidence-based, and inclusive leadership as the energy transition both accelerates and encounters real-world roadblocks.

---

(For specific studies, books, or reports referenced (e.g., Cornell pollution study, Enlightene Energy’s battery drug), see show notes or transcript for links and further details.)

Transcript

[A]

LNG 2026 is the premier global conference and exhibition for the LNG industry. Taking place in Doha, Qatar on the 2nd to 5th February 2026, the event will highlight how LNG can meet growing demand for energy, drive economic development and enable a lower carbon future. It will also explore issues including the impact of AI, changing ESG regulations, emerging low carbon fuels including hydrogen and ammonia, and ways to cut methane emissions. To understand where the industry is heading, LNG 2026 is the place to be. Explore the exhibition floor, see the latest technologies in action and hear from the experts. Register today at lng2026.com.

[B]

Pause number one. My brain just exploded with how big that number is compared to where things were not that many years ago before battery prices got to where they're going. I'm going to place a bet that they're going to be a lot even bigger next year and so we'll see if I'm right. That's my bet.

[C]

We have a, a number estimate or no.

[B]

Do we want to get into it? Do we want to do an under over? Because I'm in.

[C]

Like that'd be great. Yes.

[A]

Hello and welcome to the Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood McKenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm Ed Crooks and on this show we're going to be doing our review of 2025. We're going to be looking back on the highs and maybe some of the lows of the past year in energy to talk about what's been another eventful year. We've invited back three of our favorite people onto the show. Melissa Lott is a partner for Energy Technologies at Microsoft. Hi Melissa, how are you?

[B]

Hey, doing well, Ed, it's great to be here. Really looking forward to this discussion.

[A]

Absolutely great to have you here. And of course, always the standard disclaimer. You're speaking strictly in a personal capacity, not expressing the view as Microsoft Corporation or anything like that.

[B]

So that's correct. Just my brain. That's all I brought today. Just my brain and my, my opinions. So there we go.

[A]

And those are more than enough. Absolutely. Shanu Matthew is a portfolio manager and investor. Hi Shanu, how are you?

[C]

Hey, Ed. Hey everyone. Great to see you guys all again.

[A]

Yeah, very much looking forward to this discussion about the year and last, but by no means least, Amy Myers Jaffe. Amy is the director of the Energy Climate justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University. Hi Amy, how are you?

[D]

I am great and fun to be with everybody in the holiday season.

[A]

Absolutely. So look, let's start on a high note. I think we should talk about the good things that happened in 2025. I know we've all brought in our highlights of the year. Melissa, maybe do you want to go first? What was your highlight of 2025?

[B]

Absolutely not. I always go first, so I don't want to go first. I don't want to. I'm telling you, there were so many high points, so I didn't know where to start. I'm saying not every moment was a joy o. There were moments where I was like, oh, okay, where are we going? But there were so many moments of joy. So can I not go first?

[A]

Well, that is fantastic. No, you absolutely can. Why don't I go with one of mine, which is a bit.

[B]

You never go first. This is perfect.

[A]

I never go first. So let me. Let me do this. But it is. It is a little bit boring. But I do think it's important, which is it's the formation of a bipartisan consensus in the United States in favor of permitting reform and basically making it easier to build things. It feels like there is now very broad agreement and something which has been rumbling around for many years that it's too difficult to build all kinds of infrastructure in the United States. There now does seem to be real momentum behind actually doing something about that, passing legislation. Various different reasons to do with a lot of what's been going on in Washington over the past year that have, I think, generated kind of new momentum behind that. It very much warmed my heart the other day to see America's Clean Power, the Renewable Industry association, and the American Petroleum Institute signing on to the same statement in favor of permitting reform. I thought that's great to see that sort of broad consensus across all different technologies. I am 100% prepared to be proved wrong on this one, because actually the legislation is being debated in Congress right now. The Speed act, which is proposed by a Republican congressman, Bruce Westerman, chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, that's being debated, seems to be some gossip that that might actually get blocked in the next few days. So I'm prepared for my optimism to be punctured on this one, for a highlight to turn into a lowlight. But certainly, as I say, I think just for the moment at least, I'm in that brief kind of rosy glow of thinking that there's some genuinely positive development, some genuinely positive movement in Washington in terms of agreeing that we need to build more stuff and we need to build more stuff in energy in particular, across all different technologies. So that was my Highlight.

[C]

Do you just footnote your highlight? Ed, I'm afraid subject something to change.

[A]

Terms and conditions apply, unfortunately. So go then. Shadi, what was yours?

[C]

Okay. Mine is also in the realm of building and as you'll see in the categories you did today, I'm very data center oriented because I felt like this year was the year of AI data centers. But mine, the highlight was the emergence of COMPUTE flexibility and bring your own capacity in the sense of scaling out and scaling up data centers more effectively. I think the reason I picked this one is because it helps invert the problem. I think a lot of folks are starting to deal with political and community pushback to building these things. And ultimately I think grids can really benefit from data centers in a way if compute is flexible because it's not like an industrial facility where to pick up and move things or an actual input, the load is actually pretty flexible in terms of the sense of we can move it across geography or space or time temporarily. Right. And I think that's a really unique angle that we should really lean into as we begin to scale out and build out the grid as we need it for not only AI, but EVs and electrification of everything as well. So I think it's a really good time to get on the right side of building out things, especially as whether AI happens to the extent people think we still need a 2x electricity system under net zero pathways. And I think this is a really good time to flip the negative and into a positive and hopefully leverage that. And so you saw that with different papers that were put out, like the Caymus Energy and the Princeton Report that just came out, Emerald AI did a pilot project. Google announced initial pilot projects with tva and I think it was Idaho Power or somewhere else too. So you'll start to see that in the wild in the next few years. And I think. But the year that we were trying to think about how to solve solutions creatively was the benefit to me.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And I do agree that I think that was definitely something that happened during the course of this year. It feels like a year ago if you talk to a lot of data center operators and developers, they'd have said, no, no, we can't be flexible. We need five nines reliability. These things have to be always on. And they would have also said we can't bring our own generation with us. We just need to be totally grid connected. We might have backup power, but that's only to be used very rarely. And as you say now when you talk to People a lot more interest in flexibility, a lot more interest in bring your own power. That's something I think has really shifted very significantly in the industry over that period. So, Amy, what about yours?

[D]

Well, I'm going to kind of spell off of at your end, Shanuz, and just say that the fact that electricity is the new gasoline is my highlight. Electricity costly in the news all year. People having to not only think about permitting, but having to think about generation and what kind of generation and what generation causes or doesn't cause problems. We had a year where we didn't have giant blackouts in the news on this side of the Atlantic. Right. So no flex alert in California, outages in Texas have collapsed because of the installation of batteries and bunch of VPPs and other kinds of new kinds of things. And of course, we had the giant deal of the year, which was Constellation, the utility's $26 billion purchase of Calpine, which set the tone about how much utility might be willing to spend on reliability and the debate, you know, what brings reliability. And so I think having that debate and sort of focusing in on what needs to be done in infrastructure in the United States and having it be so front of everybody's face is probably a good thing in the long term.

[A]

Yeah, that is really interesting. And it's something I'd thought about talking about as a low point of the year was rising electricity prices and the fact that power prices, having been stable for a very long time, started rising particularly sharply, basically after the pandemic. And for a while, kind of the price of power was going up because the price of everything else was going up as well, and they were kind of moving in line. Now, power prices are clearly rising in real terms significantly faster than the rate of general consumer price inflation.

[D]

That is a low light. That definitely the low light. But then it was also the highlight of just. What's everybody talking about in the energy space.

[A]

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say as take the negative and flip it to a positive. It's drawn everyone's attention to this issue. It's got everyone thinking about it, focusing on it, looking for solutions. And that is, yeah, definitely is 100% a positive thing. I would agree with that. So go on then. So you, you. You can't avoid this one forever. You say you have two things to choose. You're going to have to pick something.

[B]

Well, you know, I mean, every free electron I have, I pick like three things, not one. This is terrible, y'.

[D]

All.

[B]

It actually relates to a couple of different things. So back in the early part of the year, I know the EIA was publishing so EIA in the US and the IEA out in France, they were publishing their numbers on what they expected to happen this year and it was really interesting. The numbers and project. Amy, to your point, batteries, the projections around solar, the projections around wind. Side comment. I am so much more interesting at cocktail parties than I ever thought I would be. Because to your point, Amy, people are talking about this in a really real way. The idea of where does my energy come from and where do my bills come from and where will they come from in the future? And how does economic development phrase. A different way but employers in my area, how does that depend on energy? Has been top of mind for folks. But the numbers I wanted to highlight were around batteries. And so I'll just do a couple. I won't go too far ahead, I promise. But if we want to go back, let's just go to the eia. Let's stick on this side of the pond. But when they were talking about 2024 and they were talking about new additions by power providers, just over 10 gigawatts. Right? Pause. Number one, my brain just exploded with how big that number is compared to where things were not that many years ago before battery prices got to where they're going. But then this year they were projecting about 18.2 gigawatts of utility scale battery storage. And so this conversation flexibility. I've talked to so many times on the show about this. We all have about, okay, practical pathways forward. What is getting stuff built. So to your high point, Ed, you know, how do we get infrastructure built? Well, look at what's happening with batteries. Look at what's happening with distributed resources that can scale. And this isn't for any one reason except for maybe the fact that it's gotten really cheap, it's gotten really practical and we're paying attention and needing these resources and so we're putting them on the system to give ourselves another tool in the toolbox. I just am thrilled by the practical numbers and I'm excited to see where they get to the end of this year. I'm going to place a bet that they're going to be a lot even bigger next year. And so we'll see if I'm right. That's my bet.

[C]

Do we have. Do we have a number estimate or no?

[B]

Do we want to get into it? Do we want to do an under over? Because I'm in like, let's.

[C]

That'd be great. Yes.

[B]

Well, Shawnee, your numbers. Your numbers first. So what's the over under going to be? Is this going to be a fantasy football situation? Are we going to pick our favorite for this?

[A]

I think, I mean, they say nowadays you can bet on anything, right? I'm sure we can do on this one as well. But to be clear what it says, this is a number just for the US Is it?

[B]

What is your just for the US and just for utility scale power providers. So it doesn't count the little battery I have in my home that may give me some backup. It doesn't count any of that stuff. I just find this really, really interesting to watch because lots of changes has happened in the system and yes, we're paying a lot of attention to infrastructure. Priorities have shifted many times over the last. Let's go for a decade. And yet we're seeing these numbers and it's just like, all right, reminder of where we are. And you know me, at the end of the day, Ed, my high point was always going to be a number because I love the numbers. And so this is the one I decided to pick out this time because it's got so many applications. Whatever generation source you're using, whatever end use source you're using, this is something that provides services. And I remember, we all remember the days when we, you know, we're trying to get people to understand what is an ancillary service, which as an aside, forget the technical wonky term for a minute. It's like, what are the services we need to get the thing we want, which is affordable energy 24,7 in our homes. So I debated a lot of numbers, but I just really like this one. And it's real and we're feeling it. And you said it, Amy. Like we're seeing it and how our system is performing, we're seeing it in terms of how we utilize our energy. And that is incredibly nerdy and incredibly exciting to me. So that's my high point. I didn't pick a big announcement from anything. I just, I like this number. It makes me happy.

[D]

Well, and the interesting thing to that point, if we were just going to say dramatic news event of the year so we didn't have to pick a positive. We would have to, of course, say the big beautiful bill and the one carve out that didn't get killed in the big beautiful bill was batteries. And so there are all these ancillary things that the Trump administration is doing in terms of more work on metals and metals mining, more work on the battery supply chain, and then of course, they're keeping some work in battery breakthroughs because we also saw some really interesting battery breakthroughs this year. Yes. You know, not what we some people, you know, there was the BYD announcements. Ed and I are still debating whether or not solid state batteries could hit and change the whole landscape. Ed, of course, says no, no, no, I'm still keeping an open mind. But anyway, so just a lot going on in the space.

[A]

Yeah, indeed. Sodium ion batteries as well. Something else I've been quite positive on. Interesting developments happening there. So my footnote to your highlight, Melissa, again. Oh, no, here we go again. It's the thing you mentioned, Amy, which is the big beautiful bill, the impact that's had, as you say, good news in one sense in terms of tax credits for storage projects being maintained in that legislation. The bad news is the FIAC provisions. I think that is, you know, FIORC probably, if you were going to pick a word of the year, that might be one of them. Something we all talked about a lot, I think, during 2025. Foreign entities of concern, their involvement in the supply chain. I know it's going to be difficult to avoid having Chinese suppliers somewhere in your supply chain if you're in storage because China dominates both the market for lithium ion batteries and for the battery chemicals and everything that goes into that supply chain. So that is going to be a problem, I think, going to the point about what's going to happen next year. I think probably you'll be okay next year for investment in the US because there'll be projects that have been safe harbored if you bought your equipment already and so on, then those things will be deployed and installed and come online during the coming year. So I think probably next year you'll be up. I think after that there may be a rocky period. There's also a lot of new capacity being built in the US to build these batteries. So.

[D]

Yeah, let me just say the following thing, though, because we're, you know, Shanu brought it up and you know, we have this probability markets, right. So in your probability market world, since the news today was a little bit positive on the meeting between Trump administration officials and Ukraine President Zelensky, you know, what's your probability of a peace accord in Europe, in Ukraine, and how would that affect whether we need to have sanctions on anyone? And in particular, does that ease the trade war with China if we're not worried about China's support for Russia or we're not worried about sort of a tonality of geopolitical tension if we have no geopolitical tension. Do we just throw all our chips to China and they throw all their metals to us and then everything is just happy, happy, happy 100%.

[A]

Although I think we can't have a highlight that hasn't happened yet. Who knows, hopefully, fingers crossed, maybe that can be a highlight we can talk about a year from now as a highlight of 2026 perhaps.

[B]

Sure. And I know we said we're going for highlights, right. But related to it is the. I'm not going to call it a low light. I'm going to call it a hope for the future which is a lot more progress around supply chain development, diversification, build outs of robust supply chains down to the thing we get out of the ground or the thing we want to use for the service we want to provide. I'm again, I'm trying to. It's a hope for the future. I hope that as we move forward a lot more progress will be made on that more quickly and there are some very big bogeys in that field that will have to be overcome, some potholes in the road that will need to fill in. But it's key, it's key to us moving fast when it comes to adopting these technologies. So CC what I did there Ed, not a low light hope for the future. And in that I mean Shanu, I'm looking at you like moving money and how we move money around into this and like how we think about the whole system evolving. How can we move that quickly? I think it's going to take some creativity and innovation. A different type of innovation than the one I do every day with technology and hardware. So yeah, it's my hope for I.

[C]

Think just to connect. You're an endpoint like I was going to bring up. There was a sell side report. I think it was from like B of A or someone and it was like storage set to boom if fiat allows it to type of situation. So it kind of connects your two or I mean like I think a lot of it just in terms of the capital and velocity of deployment is the certainty around the tax credits and how they're defined. So I think it is both an opportunity and a risk. But there's also that element to right like even with no tax credits or like high tariffs like the Chinese sell still might be more affordable. To your point there are things that people can do to navigate around them or work through them should there be no benefits. But we kind of just need that clarity. So it is interesting. I think overall really optimistic, cautiously optimistic.

[A]

Good way to put it, I think. Okay, so let's move on. Let's go to next category, Person of the year. Who wants to go first on that one?

[C]

I'll do one. Because this guy was in the news like every other day or potentially every day. But my person of the year was Sam Altman. To just give the idea of how much potential news headline fatigue there is around his name, like Stargate was earlier this year in January was like the $500 billion thing. And then in the last few months there was like the 10 billion Broadcom deal, the 6 gigawatt Oracle deal, the 6 gigawatt AMD deal, the 10 gigawatt Nvidia deal. I mean like talk about someone that knows how to draw a headline with politicians, with heads of state, with whoever. And the reason I picked him wasn't necessarily because of the promotional angle or the open AI angle even, but it was like how he single handedly kind of pushed us to evolve the conversations, both positive and negative around AI, where I think like the last year it might have been who could set the biggest number of the biggest promise. And this year, by virtue of him striking so many deals, it started to bring the question of like, how does this actually get done? I mean, we're talking about like a trillions of dollars. I mean, the number that gets floated is 1.4 trillion. You know, they have somewhere in like 10 to 25 billion between this year and next year in revenue. So how do those things bridge to each other? And so I think there's been a lot more healthy talk in the ecosystem now, but like, well, how does the next 6 to 12 months look like? What are the actual incremental milestones we're looking towards before we move to the next thing? And then I think it was like, you know, a lot of it was caused by the fact that he announced so many deals and people were starting to ask questions. And then I think there was like a, a podcast where he reacted pretty negatively to asking the financing questions. So it started to, you know, stoke some questions. But I think he inadvertently pushed the maturity level of the, the CapEx cycle into a higher level of now we're execution focused versus just say the biggest numbers. So that was my unconventional take on probably an obvious answer for a lot of folks.

[D]

Well, and I would take that to the next level because, you know, you say, you know, he's everywhere, he's at the White House, whatever. And of course the big talk was AGI, artificial general intelligence. You know, are we getting there? When will we get There. And everybody loves someone in the limelight, and then everybody loves to draw down someone in the limelight, so, you know, you can attract too much attention. So now the discussion about whether AGI is reachable. Is it reachable using training of LLMs, or do we have to have a totally different approach? You know, you have the Tesla robotics and other kinds of company robotics announcements, and can you do that? Do you need AGI? And this whole question about what is AGI? Should the US government be funding AGI? Do we have to get to AGI? Can only one player get to AGI? You know, is AGI realistic? Is it really going to be ChatGPT? Could it be Google? Could it be this one? Could it be that one? Could it be Totally not the way we're thinking about it. And it's gonna be approached in a totally different technological form. All of that has caused the finance community, the utility industry, the oil and gas industry. I mean, I'm having to, like, read, read, read about AGI now, because every forum I go into to speak about, whether it's about LNG or it's about US electricity, or it's about US China trade, you have to know the details of AGI. And Goldman Sachs recently, a week or so ago, put out an interesting report on AI, which is quite a good read. And it turns out NYU is a big place. So I don't know everybody, and I don't even know everybody who's famous, but it turns out there's an emeritus professor of cognitive science at NYU named Gary Marcus. And he was, I mean, apparently he's written these amazing books and he's on the book tour and, you know, quite a desirable speaker. But he. They had a Q and A with him in this Goldman Sachs study, and he explained in a very interesting, you know, easy to understand terms why, as a cognitive science, he does not believe LLMs will be the means to reach AGI. And as he explains that out, he says how, when he first said that, he was viciously attacked, but now people are coming around to his point of view, partly because of all the hallucinations of all these LLMs and the fact that bigger isn't getting us better, we don't seem to be getting closer.

[A]

Indeed. So is he your Person of the Year?

[D]

He could be my person of the Year. Good idea. Good idea.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, I agree. It's fascinating stuff. Go, Melissa, what's yours?

[B]

I can't tell y' all how hard this was. Like, it was so hard. I went through so many tech entrepreneurs, small and big. Different breakthroughs, different new creations. I actually thought about nominating a national lab as a person of the Year and then figured that was being too liberal with it, so I pulled it back. So then I finally came down to two familiar names and I'll explain why. I debated towards. And I did pick Ed. I did pick one. So I debated between Fatih Birol and Kathryn Hayhoe. And this is where I got to. I think it's kind of like your Sam Altman comment, Amy, where there were lots of really big. And Shanu, I think it's a great choice. I'm not criticizing it, but there were a lot of big headlines. And I was like, all right, in these middle these big headlines, where have I seen steady voices bringing us back to what we need to accomplish if the goal is to get emissions down? And I felt like Fatih and Catherine both did a really good job this year of just like bringing it back. Hey, these are the numbers. So I picked Fatih in the end.

[D]

And.

[B]

And here's why. I got into his workforce report and their data center and energy use report. And so the workforce report spoke to me on a community level on how we're actually going to practically move stuff forward. We need skilled folks to do things and if we lose sight of that, that's a long term investment. And I just in the middle of all the flash and the noise, I'm like, y', all, we cannot forget this. So good on you for bringing it up. And I kept seeing quotes from him about that report in interviews that were about other reports that had come out. He kept going back to workforce and I was like, I like that. I like that. Solid. Just let me tell you what the numbers say. And I really enjoyed that. Kathryn was such a close second. So there you go. But that's my big flash, you know, highlight person of the year. That's what I picked. I did not pick an organization. I picked two individuals. But Fatih wanted out slightly and it was for those two reports.

[A]

Yeah, that's a really good point, actually, on Fatih Birrell and the work he does and an aspect of what he does that I haven't really thought thought of. So Catherine here, who explained just why. So why she your runner up?

[B]

Yeah, so runner up. There may be some bias in this because I'm an energy person first, you know, who thinks about energy systems working in climate. But Catherine was my number two because she's continued around this. Here is how climate change is affecting us right now. Here are the things we need to Accomplish. Let's bring it back to the atmospheric science. You know, the climate is a function of these things going in. Let's bring it back to fundamentals. And then also the communication strategy she has around. Meet people where they are, answer their questions and speak clearly. So I can give you a $10 word, heck, I could probably give you a $10,000 word for something. But if I have a 10 cent word that works, I should use that 10 cent word to explain the thing that is affecting your life and then help you to have tools to actually respond to it. And she's been very consistent in that and this year was no exception. So I, I follow her newsletter, I follow her talking events and I just thought it was really good to have again in the midst of a lot of noise this year. It just felt like a very noisy year to me. I don't know about y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

And these were two voices that kept it like, here's what the data tell us, here's what the atmospheric science is telling us, here's what the energy systems are looking at. And let me be your voice of what the data are telling us. What are the options for doing things about it, where are the opportunities should you choose to step into it and then bringing it back to our lives? So there you go. Does that answer your question?

[A]

It certainly does. No. That's fantastic. Yeah. And 100% endorse your point about the importance of clear communication. Certainly something I'm a massive believer on. I think probably everyone who comes on this show is as well. So I want to talk about my person of the Year, who is Kathy Hochul, the Governor of New York State, which should absolutely not be taken as a general endorsement of her politics one way or the other from any direction. But I'm nominating her for the very specific reason that she introduced and then backed and defended against quite a lot of pressure, congestion pricing for New York City, which is just a really great policy, I think, very, very sensible policy, which clearly having materially positive benefits already. And there's an interesting study just published the other day talking about measurable drops in congestion and in pollution. It's quicker to get around the city, actually foot traffic to businesses within the congestion pricing zone gone up quite significantly. So it's good for business as well. And that just seems, it feels like something that took quite a bit of political courage actually to stick to it. There was a lot of very noisy opposition. But my experience, I lived in London when the congestion charge was introduced there, and it was one of these things that was a bit controversial when it first came in, but as soon as it was in effect, everyone came on board with it. No one would dream now of getting rid of it. Everyone, I think great majority of people would agree that's been a positive thing for London and everyone defends it. And I could see that very much the same thing would happen in New York as well. And I do think that has been the case that now it's here, I think it's here to stay. And I think it's very interesting. It's an example, one of these policies that I think is very much backed by sort of economists and policy wonks. And everyone says obviously the right thing to, to do is to have congestion pricing. And sometimes those kind of policies don't actually work. And the theory is great, but the implementation isn't. The practice turns out to be messy and people turn against them. But actually, as I say, if you look at London, congestion pricing's really worked there. It's a great example of a situation where it works in theory and actually it really does work in practice as well. And I think that's happening in New York as well. So that is my reason for choosing Kathy Hochul.

[D]

Let me add to that, Ed, you know, sitting in New York because she did a lot of interesting things this year. She negotiated with the Trump administration to make sure that New York's project for offshore wind didn't get canceled.

[A]

True.

[D]

Right. She then continued New York's lawsuit with 1313 states against the Trump administration and got a ruling from a federal judge that the Interior Department's decisions and other executive orders about wind were capricious. And so therefore offshore wind could legally now be back on track. She did something very controversial in New York. She stood up against, you know, right and left and said that New York was going to revisit nuclear energy. She then actually worked with her administration and they approved permits for the Northeast Supply Enhancement natural gas pipeline, bringing more Pennsylvania gas to New York City underneath Raritan Bay in New Jersey and New York Harbor. I want to tell the listeners, because the listeners are not all from New York. And don't listen to Kathy Hochschul on a day to day basis. Here's her quote. We need to govern in reality as governor, a top priority is to make sure the lights and heat stay on for all New Yorkers as we face potential energy shortages downstate as soon as next summer. She said, actually.

[A]

So having said I don't support her or not expressing an opinion about everything she's done overall hearing you list those things in terms of the pipeline, wind development, nuclear, all those things I'm listening to and thinking, yeah, that was good. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, yeah. So actually perhaps my support for her is broader than I was initially letting on.

[B]

So I want to highlight one thing, Virgo Avery, that I totally get, why it's your choice, why she's your choice. And lots of, lots of highlights in there from an air pollution and health perspective. That study, I think, were you referencing the one from Cornell that just came out a week ago?

[A]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. About a week ago, yeah.

[B]

So Shanu and Amy, if you haven't already read it, and to our listeners, what it showed, it took a bunch of air pollution measurements over, I think it was 500 and something days. So before and after this congestion pricing stuff came into effect and they said essentially that its overall impacts have been a drop in. Let's go with particulate matter. So PM2.5. That's the stuff that leads to asthma attacks, respiratory illness, copd. There's a long list of bad things it does to our body because it's super tiny. It goes into our bodies, goes into our bloodstream. Bad stuff happens. And it dropped by something like 22%. And so when you think about it, if I was living in those areas and I had a child with asthma, I might be in my life seeing a drop in critical acute asthma attacks there or I might soon see that I am at a lower risk of a whole host of diseases that none of us ever want to get. And so that's a really big public health impact and a measurable impact. I am going to be following it. I'm really curious where these numbers go in the future, but those real public health impacts of that, they're now being documented and the numbers are very clear that it's been positive from a public health perspective.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

It's incredible.

[C]

Over what time period was that measured? Out of curiosity, just for that.

[B]

So the congestion charging edit came in in January.

[A]

Yeah, it came into January.

[C]

Yeah, so yeah, January. Pretty meaningful updates in like short time.

[B]

And they measured it. So the measures, because they need a baseline. Right. So before and after. So I think it was something like, you know, a year before and then. And I'll put up the study, maybe we can put it in the show notes because the study just came out a week ago and I was reading all the, the highlights of it and so they p all of those air pollution data measurements and just compared. Okay, before and after and you know, controlling. Okay, was there anything else major going on. Well, this was pretty much the major thing. And for PM2.5 transportation for New York City in that section of Manhattan, I mean that's the driving force of it. Yes, you can get particulate matter from construction, you can get it from other sources, but that's the major one. And so that's what they put up. But we'll drop it in the show notes. But that's incredible. And actually 22% drop in a single year. Whoa. Amazing. So air pollution person. That is amazing those numbers.

[A]

It's true, it's true. It really has been a great thing. LNG 2026 is the premier global conference and exhibition for the LNG industry taking place in Doha, Qatar on the 2nd to 5th February 2026. Under the theme Leading Powering Today and Tomorrow, the executive program will feature plenary in spotlight sessions with global industry industry leaders discussing key LNG sector opportunities and strategic topics from across the industry's value chain. The event will highlight how LNG can meet growing demand for energy, drive economic development and enable a lower carbon future. It will also explore issues including the impact of AI, changing ESG regulations, emerging low carbon fuels including hydrogen and ammonia, and ways to cut methane emissions. To understand where the industry is heading, LNG 2026 is the place to be. By attending, you can join the conversation network with global leaders, explore the exhibition floor and experience Doha firsthand. Register for a delegate [e-mail].

[C]

When I first started doing this and I would talk about climate change, it was like another subject like geology, hydrology, meteorology and it was well received and then at some point it got politicized.

[B]

What made climate change political was the most comprehensive, longest running propaganda campaign in US history. I'm Amy Westervelt, the host of Drilled, a True Crime podcast about climate change. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

So let's go on to the next one. Technology. Technology of the year. Who wants to go first on that one? I see Melissa, you shaking your head. So I don't know. Shannon, do you want to come in first on the technology again or. Because I think. Amy, I think I know what you're going to say and I think you and I are paired on this. So yeah, we are paired on opposite sides of the argument. So yeah. Charlotte, do you want to do yours first?

[C]

Sure, yeah. Again, sorry for being the single theme guy here today, but it's kind of two I'd pick just because it's Nano Banana 3, which is one of Google's new AI tools and then Claude code. So for I, for those that don't know, I mean, I'm like the resident finance guy, right? Finance and accounting background. I have zero coding experience, I don't know any of the technical details of how AI models work and everything like that. But for the first time this year, and since like at least the 18 months was the first like wow moments I've had where I was like fundamentally blown away by how good these models work. So for those that don't know, Nana Banana is Google's image generator tool. And so like what folks are doing is like you could upload like 100 page technical paper. So for example, that Camus Princeton study I brought up on bring your own capacity slash demand response, you put it in there in a few minutes, it gives you a five minute plus video that is explained in layman's terms, a 15 page slide deck that articulates the most important parts, and then an infographic that summarizes it in a single image. And to give you like a perspective on it too, like, I had a friend that was interviewing for something. He ran three deep research studies on the startup, fed it into that tool, and then it came up with something that I would say is like a first year private equity associate level work deliverable. And it was in a span of like, you know, five, 10 minutes. So that just like blew my mind away. I think most importantly, I'm really excited about education. I think like it was like one of those like wild moments where you're like, all right, people can learn things in a really accelerated fashion and they can kind of meet you where you're at in terms of understanding. So that was like part one, Part two is literally this weekend was this like Claude code vibe coding thing. I've always heard the term. I had no idea what it meant. But basically you can speak in natural language to your computer and it will literally code stuff. And I started doing it this weekend and it truly was another wow moment where I built three web interactive dashboards on data sets that I've maintained where I can interact with them, do everything again, I zero code. I don't even know what it wrote, but I just spoke to it in normal, plain English language. And it spun these things up in a matter of five to 10 minutes. And I could see now why people are so excited when they talk about, oh, coding is solved and things like that. Where it was just, it literally felt like magic where you're just like, okay, I put in Embers monthly electricity data set for Example, all of a sudden I can manipulate it and see all these data sets over three decades worth, click into things, manipulate it, drag and drop everything. And again, I don't. Zero coding background. I built that in five minutes. So two wow moments in the sense of the leaps that these models are making.

[D]

Well, I have to be a little bit of a naysayer here, though it does sound really pretty productive. And that's because I tried teaching a seminar this past summer where we only used LLMs as our textbook. And I tried to. I brought in guests and with the class, did different exercises that if you worked for someone like yourself, Shauna, when I was a first year associate or whatever, I might get asked to do. And one of the things we discovered in doing this class, which had 12 students, is that if we gave the students a prompt and an exercise, didn't matter what the task was, do a permitting report or application for a particular location, size of der for Walmart. We did different things universally. Even when, I mean, we had one time we were so frustrated that the thing wouldn't give all the students the right answer that we actually took the entire worksheet and told all the students to load the worksheet and the NREL data and all this stuff. You can't believe how hard it is to actually train your personal version of your use of an LLM to do something if you're not someone who already knows how to do it. Right. So when I put the props into my computer, I would get the right answer. But to get the other 12 students to put a prompt in and have the machine give it the right answer was really a chore. And so it does raise this question about, you know, it's useful. The people already know what they want to do, but how good is it for, you know, junior staff and for teaching? Right. The whole course became, how do we all get these programs to give us the right answer as opposed to this is how you use the thing to do different tasks?

[A]

I don't know. I mean, I think those caveats are important. It still seems to me like there is something very, very significant changing here. And as Shanu says, the world is going to be very, very different as a result of this kind of progress. I think that's.

[C]

It's the worst I'll ever be. Right. That's all right.

[A]

Exactly.

[D]

Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true.

[A]

So let's come on to our two technologies of the year, Amy, because. Did you want to go first? Do you want me to go first?

[D]

Well, you can go first because, you know, I like to do the listeners and I like to disagree with you.

[A]

I'm going to be talking about what I believe to be the only real nuclear reactor with any kind of future in the United States, certainly, and quite possibly in other parts of the world as well, which is the Westinghouse AP1000. There's a lot of talk about kind.

[D]

Of, yeah, Melissa, we're looking forward to drag you into this about, you know.

[A]

People will talk about small modular reactors and there's kind of a lot of hype over, oh, you know, they'll be quick and cheap to build and they'll solve all the problems with existing nuclear technology and so on. A lot of glamour, a lot of hype, most of which I think is unjustified. Much less actual achievement, much less evidence of things actually being built. The AP1000 is a reactor that exists, has been built, is in service right now, and there are more of them are going to be built as well. In particular, because this commitment we have had from the Trump administration, talking about $80 billion plus of support in this new venture to build new AP1000 reactors across the United States, that is something that is actually going to happen. Unlike, as I think, certainly the vast majority of proposed SMRs, which are basically vaporware, don't exist and never will exist. There may be a few that may progress or are, to be fair, some that are actually under construction right now and will be entering service. Individual little pilot projects here and there. But in terms of actually making a material difference to nuclear generation in the US in the next 10 years, let's say it's, to me, it's AP1000 or nothing.

[B]

Okay, I appreciate all the footnotes and caveats, Amy. I've got so much. But please.

[A]

Yeah, go on.

[D]

I'm just gonna say scratch the surface and I'm going to defer to Melissa, who really knows the field. But, you know, and I feel like if we're doing technology of the year, SMRS should be the technology of the year. And that is because Everybody's talking about SMRs. People who've never considered nuclear are talking about SMRs. Everybody, everybody, everybody's talking about SMRs. People still don't know what the AP1000 is. Maybe they listened to the show, they learned a little bit. So, you know, and why. I mean, it's, you know, I get what you're saying about a lot of these projects. But. And this is my. But let's not forget that the Chinese built the pebble bed helium coolant their htrpm smr. I mean it's different, but it's not 100% dissimilar to X Energy's, you know, helium gas cooled pebble bed design.

[A]

If I may just interject. They built a lot more AP1000s, right? Or the Chinese version of that. I think it's the CAP 1000. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[D]

Yeah but, but you're. But I mean, you know, is. Is an ice truck the car of the year or would BYD's new EV that charges in five minutes, would that be the car of the year? Like I think think one has to think about when you're talking about technology of the year. We still have to think about what do you think the future is. So are you actually arguing that this AP1000 is the one, it's the workhorse and it's just, you know, the technology of the future? Because I'm not sure I can go with you on that.

[A]

No.

[B]

And you got to go with the caveats he gave. So it was like in the next 10 years. And I am assuming you mean on a gross capacity, not necessarily functional benefits to the system. Which is why I said I appreciate the caveats because look, we got. I should, I should let you answer. Ed. Sorry, one sec though. On a couple of things which is just. Can I quote my Australian colleagues like horses for courses, like these are different things. To group them all is like nuclear. It's like okay, cool fuel resources. Are we talking about fission? Great, okay. Into the fusion conversation on a different show but around it there are different places where they make sense. And okay, so you've got a front runner now in terms of what you could build out if you started today and started building. Fine. But these other technologies have so much potential and the potential to do things. It's that AP1000 is not set up to do. And that's not a disparaging remark about AP1000. It's just saying it's just two different tools in your toolbox. It's just two different tools. You would deploy them in different places for different applications.

[D]

Melissa, correct me if I'm wrong. There are companies looking at real micro nuclear. So not. I don't have to go through the whole regulatory puzzle. It's going to be so small. I'm just going to do some kind of a design. You know, some people are talk about how bwy, you know, has been building small nukes for, for submarines for a long time. Could that technology come to market as a, as a solution? So I think there's a lot of different technologies out there that fit different purposes.

[B]

Well, I was gonna say. So I'm gonna get just really practical for two seconds around how I think through the technology. So let's say I have an existing nuclear site with a big ol reactor. You know, am I going to build another big old reactor on that site? Do I have enough space to do that? Do I have enough water to do that? Do I have enough. All the different components need, or does it make sense to put some smaller stuff on that site and incrementally increase? Because those incremental increases can make huge differences in my market. So I would say without the caveats, I was. You could. People will see my facial expressions.

[C]

They were like, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And then the caveats came and I was like, okay, so. So it's just. It's different horses for courses. Am I a quarter horse, I need to do a sprint, or am I thoroughbred, that I need just long haul, mile plus. You know, we're talking about triple Crown kind of races. Both are valuable.

[D]

There's another dark horse player out there that doesn't get a lot of media, but called Exodus, where they actually go to a site and then repurpose those spent fuel rods to generate steam as a waste solution.

[C]

We might have a topic where there's 2v2 here. Because I think I'm going to ride to Ed's defense part of this. It might be a little bit. It depends, I guess. If you've looked at the SMR activity in the markets this year in terms of the amount of forward credit certain companies are getting, I think there is a rational conversation to be had around the promise of the technology and kind of alluding to Ed's prior point on things that make really good sense on spreadsheets and like talk tracks and then like the actual building of it. And I think there's. There's a lot to. There's a lot of wood to be chopped that is said to get these first plants online. And then we got to, like, see where the costs land out.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Like, first of a kind costs are like in the 15 to 20 thousand dollars per kilowatt install cost. And then you need someone to kind of continue funding it, assuming that you get the supply chain done and assuming the construction gets done all right, without teething issues, and then continue going forward. I love the promise of technology. I think there's a lot going on, but. But I do think there's a lot of. There's a lot of forward credit being given around where I Think I would like to see some, you know, a plant be built before we're writing it off as like a proven technology that we can scale into.

[D]

Well, and your point is well taken about the fuel supply for these SMRs because we haven't really 100% solved that problem.

[C]

We haven't started the problem in some cases.

[B]

Right as you touch the Nerf Amy, you touched a nerve. It's so good. Which is why we need to do probably another nuclear episode to it again because we need to revisit where these things are. I'll say a couple different things like in terms of applications and timeframes and the investments we need to technology neutral approach. Having a lot of different technologies under development because they offer different benefits and have different risks. Really important. And so for me it is not AP1000 vs SMRS micro reactors something else. It's about the portfolio you develop to have a suite of things ready to go when the time comes. I was going to just talk about battery chemistries and I was just going to talk about replacements for lithium ion or at least complementing lithium ion batteries with other things. I was going to talk about iron sodium batteries and some of the milestones that have been met the recent tests. So y' all follow Enlightenment?

[A]

No, I don't know them. No. Who are they?

[B]

There is a research facility in the uk, Enlightene Energy. They raised a bunch of seed funding a couple years ago and they just did a test I believe it was with Southern Company proving okay, is this technology ready to go go out into the system. So that's just one I'll flag for folks. I'm constantly looking at battery chemistries and trade offs and the supply chain comments we made earlier and this is one that raised to the top in interest of time. I will quickly pivot to my second one which is looking at how we use AI for permitting. So how we think about that and Idaho National Lab's announcement that this has nothing to do with what I do in my day job. I just thought it was cool using AI. So as a partnership with Microsoft Azure platform to actually streamline how we do permitting to do a bunch of safety data crunching, all that how do we use these tools? So yes, in the hands to your point earlier Amy, of folks who know their stuff and are at that more that part of their career where they know you know how to use these tools to accelerate our work streams in terms of accelerating permitting and getting to answers like I thought that was a really cool like energy AI intersection piece of work so just flagging it the.

[D]

Class we we had generously the big solar and EV charging station developer Emanate came to teach the students the class on researching permitting. And I would say that was one of the more successful uses of an LLM. You know once a professional explained to us you know how would you go about this it was much more consistent in how you would go about coming up with the right answer to a question. And I thought that really had a lot of that had legs, you know it's one of the different things we try to do with LLMs. That one really had legs that is.

[B]

So I'll just flag the announcement. It's from July from Idaho National Laboratory just talking about its collaboration to use this for accelerating permitting. So with that that's my quick flags.

[A]

Yeah that is really interesting and linking Bank Mike nicely to my highlight of the year. So I know we're running out of time. I just, just quickly wanted to get some wildcards maybe we call them free electrons on this show out of people other sort of random free choice of things. Maybe I'll start with this one because it again goes to this debate about AI. I just wanted to flag up Fermi, the company developing this huge data center and power generation project out in West Texas. Estimated cost of up to $90 billion, 11 gigawatts of power they're planning to put in there. And as I to support a lot of Data Centers for AI. That company IPO'd back in October. I think at the start of October the shares were above $32. As I speak to you now they're about $8.60 or so. So they have gone down about 74% in less than three months. And I guess this is just an example of although I'm really very much in agreement with you Shannon about the power of these tools the way they are changing the world that does not mean that every investment in this sector is going to be successful. And clearly I think when we think about perhaps what we might be looking ahead to next year in 2026, I think a theme is going to be a bit of kind of sorting out of which ideas are really kind of robust and well founded and successful in the long term and which are not and as I say Fermi, I mean so far, who knows early days yet they can still got time to turn it around. But that does seem to be one that's facing some pretty serious challenges.

[B]

I picked one. Full disclosure, the book I'm about to share was written by my sister in law that is not why I'm recommending it. Okay. That's just why I got an early release copy, but I still ordered the hardback. So it's called the Borderless Healthcare Revolution. And y' all know, I sometimes is bring in books that are like tangential to energy and I find really interesting. This one's tangential to energy and tangential to AI and tangential to health, all of which y' all know, speak to me on many levels. And it talks about the tools we have and the practical limitations of those tools. So back, Amy, to your comments in class. It's like, what can we do with remote surgery? And what. No, no, no, no. What can you do with telemedicine? And what doesn't make any sense? What can you do with medical records and using AI tools to help with diagnoses and all that? And what doesn't make sense? And it. Lots of practical, real world examples which, because I'm not an md, that was really nice. I didn't know she was doing it when she was writing. I didn't ask. I just brought her tea and sparkling water when she was writing. But when I read it, I was like, oh, a non md. I can actually understand what it's about and I just think it's really interesting. The last point I'll make is it made me think many times when I was reading it about electrification goals with the United nations and energy access goals and how we think about crossing borders to transfer technology, how we think about the economic development that is currently unrealized because we haven't tapped into these possibilities. And then in a practical sense, how do the advances in the past couple years help us to move that needle faster? Because the needle's not moving super fast in a lot of ways. So that's my. It's related to energy, but it's not. It's about healthcare. And yeah, that's my recommendation.

[A]

Yeah, that is a great point. That. A great point to raise this holiday season as well, when we are thinking about people around the world. Exactly. Well, and also gifting as well. Go. And Amy, what was your free electron?

[D]

So my free electron, Ed, is because I'm just, you know, I don't know, I'm just like in this Ed and Amy contentious mood, you know, I wanted to point out that we're talking about 2025. I think 2025 was the year when Avoided started getting momentum in terms of people using them. Like having them be a regular feature on the street in San Francisco, seeing them in Austin, seeing them in Boston and Then toward the end of the year, people started talking about commercial robots. So not just a robot that we're going to use in an industrial facility or in a manufacturing plant, but could this optimus or some of these other robots do my dishes or whatever it is that we want robots to do. And so I was just thinking about, as we grip this whole electrification question and everybody is talking about the inflationary effect of their electricity bills and we're all focused on the boogeyman of the data center. What would life be like if we're all taking robotic AVs that are electrified because most of the ones that are coming into the market are electric vehicles? And then on top of that, what if we all start having robots at home? Since many people listening to the show are disagreeing with my characterization of LLMs because that has turned out to be a good companion for them. It's making vacation recommendations. They're using it as a counselor when they're in a fight with their boyfriend or girlfriend. It's just a hop, skip and a jump to stick that thing into an entity that can walk around my house with me and do the dishes while I'm talking to it about my personal problem. So just throwing it out there that maybe, you know, that's, to me, my free electron of how much electricity use is going to come as robots go mainstream.

[A]

Yeah, I'm not actually going to disagree with you on that one, Amy. I do totally agree that that is something that's really interesting. As you say, the rise of OV saying I saw AVS in operation for the first time in my life this year in San Francisco. It's a wild thing to see. And it does make you realize that there's something really happening here. Shanna, your free electron.

[C]

Cool. Yeah, my free electron is quick. It's not energy related, non AI related finally. But it's a book. I think year end is a good time for people to reorient around what matters folks in the next year. And there's a book that I read, Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom, all about kind of how people orient around like, you know, external goals like work and things like that. But you kind of forget things like, you know, that you spend the bulk of time with your parents before your age 21, that, you know, physical health is like as equal or of higher priority than work and all these things. And it was a nice book to kind of just philosophically reexamine, you know, are you spending the time doing the things that you want to do and what makes you healthiest, happiest and, you know, with more time with the people that you care about the most. So I think it's a good time to check in on things like that. As you know, everyone loves working hard and following all the latest headlines and stuff, but reminder to take care of yourself and your loved ones.

[A]

Indeed. No, definitely.

[B]

Very cool.

[A]

I should check that out. Yeah, that does sound great. So I think. Do we just have time before we go to do our holiday gifts? I think we have presents for each other, some small things.

[B]

It's ready to show.

[A]

Yeah, it's ready to. So shall I do mine? I'm going to say what I was getting for you, Melissa. I know, obviously you made this very clear. We're talking about this and you said in advance it has to be a book. You know, the only thing you want is books. And so.

[C]

Yes, thank you.

[A]

So, a book, which I don't know if you have read this already, I hope you haven't, but I discovered this from the Financial Times Business Books of the Year list, which is always a great place to find recommendations. Have you seen this book? Book? It's called Consumed How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic by Sabir Chowdhury.

[B]

I've heard of this. I haven't read it though. I haven't ordered it.

[A]

Well, I bought it a few days ago and read it. It's quite a quick read. It's not that long a book. It's just weird.

[B]

Slightly controversial too. Am I wrong?

[A]

Exactly. No, no, no, very controversial. I don't think I agreed with all of it, but it's just really good sort of industrial history. Very, very nicely written. Very kind of interesting, Gripping read. My conclusion when I got the end of it was basically, we are kind of stuck plastics. And plastics use is just going to grow, obviously, plastics very closely tied to energy because so much natural gas and oil goes into making plastic. I think the author would kind of like us to stop using plastic and get off them. But she's very honest about how hard that is and how plastics now are kind of integral to our modern way of life. Really interesting book. I think you should definitely check it out. I think you'll enjoy it.

[B]

And Amy, I think the following shows how much we know each other and Got me a book. Amy, I'm trying to say it with a straight face. I got you an LLM that doesn't hallucinate.

[D]

Like the best gift ever.

[B]

So there you go. It's coming in this massive box. It's great. But had to do it. Amy. Had to do it. I'm curious what you got for Shanu, though?

[D]

So you know, Shanu, for those listeners that do not follow Shanu on Twitter. Twitter, you are missing out, because he is a master of observation. But in addition to that, he just has visualizations that I just am always so envious of how wonderful his visualizations are. And I feel like he must go to a lot of conferences and he must listen to all kinds of presentations, and he's probably taking voracious notes all the time, and that's probably really tedious and hard. And so I have got you, Shanu, a pair of meta.

[A]

Oh, those meta, the smart glasses.

[D]

So then you can wear them to conferences and just stick on the audio or take a picture or snapshot.

[C]

I mean, oh, it's game over for everybody.

[D]

Now, Dano and I know that we secretly hold our phones up and take a picture of a good visualization, so we can then go back to our staff and say, hey, how could we do a good thing like this?

[A]

So. So I'm gonna have to get into this. Melissa, I know you have to go. You gotta run. So we'll let you go.

[B]

Yeah. So I'm gonna say happy holidays, y'. All.

[A]

I love this. Fantastic. Yeah. Great to see you. Great talking to you. Happy holidays. Have a good one. See you in 2026.

[B]

See you in 26, y'.

[D]

All.

[A]

Bye.

[C]

Yeah, incredible gift. I think it's tough to follow up, Amy, but.

[A]

Well, hold on, hold on. Just before we get to this. Sorry, I have. I would to like. Like to say my piece about these glasses. I think they are deeply sinister. I think I'm not a wild about everyone being able to record everything on their phones. And so you're, you know, being able. Which you can do. Am I not right in thinking you can record people with these glasses and they will not necessarily know that you are recording them?

[C]

I think that they blink if they're recording.

[A]

I think.

[C]

I think a telegraph.

[A]

Okay. So you have to notice, Ed, those.

[C]

Kind of look like meta glasses, if I'm not mistaken.

[A]

Right now, this is mostly my problem, which is I'm now worried because these glasses that I wear, everyone will think I'm recording them. Yeah. So this is a problem for me, too. So I don't know. And I can see that they are actually obviously very useful. And as you say, Amy, all kinds of great, you know, genuinely very useful things you can do with them. Don't like the fact they got a camera in them, though. That worries me.

[C]

It'll be interesting to see how the uptake of them because I think they're going to run into that issue like you said. But then if everyone eventually has a them, then they'll become more.

[A]

It's just a new world. Yeah. No, indeed, indeed. All right.

[C]

Ed, you are one of the most well read people I know, so I hope you haven't read this one yet, but it actually kind of ties into this whole China debate we were having. But the book is Breakneck China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang, who is a very popular writer. He's talked a lot about the Chinese approach to building out infrastructure versus the U.S. i thought it was a really good book that built on a lot of themes that we were talking about today and, and it really gets into that realm of the US has kind of been markets driven and China's been really planned as an engineering oriented culture and so hope you haven't read it, but you are the most important. So I need to hear your take after.

[A]

Very, very kind of you say, yeah, no, I haven't read it and would love to. Yeah, no, it's a great idea and I will, I will definitely take a look. It actually a book I have read this year which I'd very highly recommend is a book called House of Huawei. Oh, okay, that's really interesting. So it's basically looking at sort of Chinese history and the history of Chinese industry and the Chinese economy since the revolution, but that's just fascinating on. It's a good dramatic story as well. I think we do have to leave it there though. Been great talking to you all. Many thanks, Amy.

[D]

Thank you. Thank you to Melissa and Shanu and Ed. Always a great year on the energy gang. So looking forward to 2023.

[A]

Absolutely. Many thanks, Shanu.

[C]

Thank you, Ed. Happy holidays to you and Amy and Melissa. It's always a pleasure joining you all.

[A]

Absolutely. Many thanks to Melissa. Sorry she had to run early, but it's been great talking to all of you and I look forward to talking to you all again in the new year. Thanks to our producers, Toby Biggins, Gilchrist, Stuart Duffy and Dan Cottrell. And above all, many thanks to all of you for listening. We really value your feedback. Please do keep that coming. Hope you all have a great holiday and we'll be back in 2026 with all the latest news and views on the future of energy. Until then, goodbye.