Jennifer Granholm on What Will Survive of Biden's Energy Legacy

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

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Joe Weisenthal (0:20)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:25)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:26)

Tracy, obviously, new administration coming in. One of the stories that we covered a lot with this administration was there has been a lot happening in the energy world.

Tracy Alloway (0:36)

Yes, so obviously Clean Energy was a big part of things like the IRA, but we also had the Department of Energy's loan programs office headed by Jigar Shah, who we've had on the podcast a number of times, deploying billions of dollars across new clean energy. The question that everyone is asking now is, how much of that is durable in the face of a new administration, which has said various, let's just say, unflattering things maybe about Biden's clean energy tendencies.

Joe Weisenthal (1:06)

No, there's so much. If we went back and looked at all of the episodes we've done and categorized them over the last four years, because we've done lots of episodes about the specific technologies. We've done episodes on nuclear. We've done numerous episodes on oil and the use of the strategic petroleum reserve. And we've done episodes on geothermal and then the return of load growth in America between data centers and economic growth, et cetera. We've probably done more energy episodes than any other topic or at least close. And we're at a crossroads probably in multiple ways. The changing the administration is the obvious one, but then there are really just big questions about what's working and what's the future of natural gas and how, you know, or like, there are just so many ongoing energy questions that feel very unresolved to me.

Tracy Alloway (1:59)

Yes. And we have another four years to look forward to, to ask more questions.

Joe Weisenthal (2:04)

And then another four years after that, but I am pleased to say-

Tracy Alloway (2:08)

It's energy questions forever. I mean, you know what?

Joe Weisenthal (2:12)

It's because this is the human question, right? No, for real. Like if we could get a little philosophical here, it's energy questions forever, because human progress is the story of getting more energy out of input. I forget the name. Do you know that guy? I can't think of his name. There's like this energy historian.

Tracy Alloway (2:31)

I thought you were going to say philosopher.

Joe Weisenthal (2:33)

He almost is. He's, I'm like blanking on his name. People will remember-

Tracy Alloway (2:36)

Energy historian. It's not Jurgen, is it?

Joe Weisenthal (2:39)

No, not Jurgen. And he goes back deeper and he has these books where he literally like calculates the amount of human calories that someone would have had to spend 5,000 years ago to grow a plant or, you know, hunt an animal and how many calories are expended in that process versus how many calories you get out of the animal that you hunt or whatever. And then does the subtraction. And human progress is essentially the history of expanding the gap between how much energy you put in and how much energy you get out. So it really will be energy questions forever.

Tracy Alloway (3:11)

Okay, now that we've set the scene, we've gone all the way in prehistory to set the scene for a discussion about the next four years and the previous four years, I should say as well.

Joe Weisenthal (3:23)

Well, in the meantime, in a slightly shorter scale, we do have absolutely the perfect guest today. We are going to be speaking with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about everything that's happened in the last four years and the political durability questions and what she's done with the DOE during her tenure. So Secretary Granholm, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

Jennifer Granholm (3:44)

Yeah, I love it. Thanks so much for having me.

Joe Weisenthal (3:46)

Absolutely. I want to start with a big picture question, maybe something that's been on my mind for a while actually. We saw an incredible boom under this administration in domestic oil production, also domestic gas production. I don't think it got a ton of attention for various reasons, but also one of the reasons was it didn't seem like it was something that at least on the trail that the administration bragged about during the election season. Is this something when you look back on the last four years, and we'll get into some of the new energy investments in the long term, is this something that you are proud of or that democratic administration should be proud of the success of our domestic hydrocarbons?

Jennifer Granholm (4:26)