Fast-tracked off-grid power plants are fueling the AI data center boom with little public scrutiny, raising transparency and pollution concerns. The administration writes another billion-dollar payout to cancel offshore wind leases, shifting capital to gas. The cleantech IPO market rebounds, led by energy, nuclear, and geothermal. FERC approves PJM's expedited interconnection track for large shovel-ready projects. Guest Tim McDonald of Semafor breaks down the Strait of Hormuz settlement, Iran's energy leverage, and what it means for gasoline prices ahead of the midterms.
Paul Gerke (00:01.487)
Hey everybody, it's time for another edition of This Week in Clean Tech. 15 minute-ish roundup of the biggest stories and climate and clean energy this week. We got a weird kind of energy on this Friday, June 19th, 2026. We got a returning guest, Tim McDonald from Semaphore, joining us. I think that might be why there's some familiarity, some comfort that breeds weirdness between all of us. Maybe it's Brian Mendez's mustache, particularly nicely trimmed this morning.
I'm Factor This content director Paul Gurky, joined as always by cleantech commentator Mike Casey of Tigercom. Not sporting a mustache, unfortunately. If we could do a mustache show in like October or November, I would be down.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (00:41.236)
All right, well, you and Mendez were so corny, I felt like I was like pre I was like in a whiskey factory, just a one big thing, a corn corn mash. Yes, I did. I I'm not taking your mustache bait, dude. I I I'm not taking your mustache bait. All right. Hey, listen, I w Paul, come back to the light. We're we're taping a show, brother. Come back to the light. Listen, hey. I
Paul Gerke (00:48.079)
Yeah, did you just disassociate there? Were you even listening to me? Your mustache bait
Paul Gerke (01:01.674)
That sounds like that sounds like a yeah, alright. Anyway. Your it's your turn to talk!
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (01:09.554)
I'm g I'm giving a shout out to Mira Rival. She's chief content officer for Climate Hive, they're a podcast out of Dubai. Dude, how cool is that? We got people from halfway around the world listening to our show. Yeah. So I th yes, sir. It's very cool.
Paul Gerke (01:20.291)
Yeah. That's a long ways away. It's the but you can get there with the speed of electronic transmission and that's the beauty of podcasting in today's day and age. The other beauty of podcasting is you guys getting to interact with us and we love to share your thoughts on the show. So anytime you want to reach out, feel free to do so. You can probably find our regular email addresses pretty easily. But we also have one for the show. It's TWIC TWIC at tigercom with two M's dot US. As always, as the allure of this program
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (01:31.022)
All right.
Paul Gerke (01:50.189)
Five stories in climate and clean energy this week that we need to talk about. Let's start with story number one.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (01:55.719)
Valer Vokovici from Reuters. Did I nail that name? All right. Fast track power plants fuel AI boom with little public scrutiny, Paul Gurky.
Paul Gerke (01:58.705)
You really leaned into it. I liked that.
Paul Gerke (02:06.510)
Yeah, tell me something we don't know. Meta's 800 acre bowling green data center in Ohio, one of dozens of large off grid power projects that's been approved in the last few weeks or months without years of permitting environmental studies or the public hearings that are typically required for stuff like this. Developers argue these off grid plants that are serving private customers, like the big hyperscalers, are exempt from a lot of the normal rules. The Apollo gas plant, feeding Meta's project, got the green light from the Ohio.
Power sighting board in under three months. It's a quick turn. The state's draft air permit wasn't even public until after construction had already started. And to keep things quiet, some developers have leveraged NDAs with local governments or operated through shell companies. Some local officials have redacted public documents or fast track permits that would have otherwise triggered some public hearings. Meta ran the Bowling Green Project under the code name Project Accordion for nearly two years. That's something we've spotted elsewhere too, Mike, where it's
Some weird project code name under a shell company, under an LLC you've never heard of. And even when you have some of the big players commit to the project, the EPCs or the the equipment suppliers or whatever, they'll say it's still for a yet to be named large technology company. And you can guess on one hand who it might be, but they're doing everything they can to mask this.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (03:27.244)
Yeah. y and and th our folks, our friends in the tech industry are wondering whether they have seventy percent opposition in the American public for getting data centers built. It's just it's really it's remarkable. So first, hey, shout out to our friend Michael Thomas over at Clean View. His data formed the basis of the story. It showed that there are at least fifty seven off grid US power plants proposed or under construction to serve individual data centers. capacity total of seventy three gigawatts. That's a whole lot of electricity.
Paul Gerke (03:36.848)
Trust, trust problem.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (03:57.285)
the story identified more than a dozen of these projects that won approval in under a year with little or no notice to residents. Again, spraying people repellent all over our cells, not a good idea. Most of these plants run on, you guessed it, frack gas, which means pollution into these communities. And lawmakers in my home state of Ohio, you know, the one with the sixty-one million dollar fossil fuel bribery scandal under its belt. You cannot make this up. They slipped a secrecy provision into an unrelated
Paul Gerke (04:18.552)
No.
Paul Gerke (04:23.855)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (04:24.096)
College athletics bill and under it local officials could face criminal charges for disclosing data center details to their own constituents. I mean I I it's like dude ha you're just trying to get people to hate you. Like you're going out of your way. It's insane. Paul, story number two.
Paul Gerke (04:43.214)
Our second story this week is by Jamison Dow from Electrek. It's titled Another Day Another Illegal Billion Dollar Bribe to Raise Your Electricity Prices. A pointed headline. Show us how sharp the spear is, Mike.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (04:52.941)
Yeah.
Yeah, so Doug Bergum, who it could be reasonably speculated about, would like to run for president someday. I don't think he understands that he's gonna wear these around his neck. Like i in a time of fiscal insolvency at the federal level, increasing electricity prices for people, average Americans, you are cutting our tax money, checks from our bank account to energy companies to walk away.
From energy production, clean energy production. So this time, the genius show is gonna write a $765 million check to Inventergy to cancel four leases off New York, New Jersey, California, and Maine in exchange for redirecting that capital to, you guessed it, fracked guest projects because those guys need more corporate welfare. This would bring the total to roughly $2.6 billion across three deals this year, all aimed but shifting companies up. Cheap, clean energy,
And onto dirtier, more expensive gas. These payouts come from the judgment fund, which exists to settle lawsuits against the government, but no lawsuit has ever been filed to all the fossil fuel bros in LinkedIn who drool all over themselves about clo pro clean energy policies. Let me just tell you, I don't want to hear from you until you have sent me the URLs of your LinkedIn post decrying this gross, corrupt cr fossil fuel welfare. Paul, your thoughts.
Paul Gerke (06:20.139)
Yeah, I mean my thoughts are are pretty similar to yours. This seems just absolutely absurd that the administration would dip into that fund, which is funded by taxpayers, by you and me, to decide to just reimburse you basically for the investments that you made in what were supposed to be substantial additions to those regional grids.
And the timing matters a lot here. I mean, we talk about it all the time on the show. Electricity demand is skyrocketing, projected to grow double digits, 20%, 30%, 40% over the next decade or so. It's something we really haven't seen in quite some time, if ever. And that's where you want to have this pipeline of of fast to build, renewable energy. And especially when we're talking about some of the cheaper technologies to get online where you don't have to wait, you know, three and a half years to secure your gas turbines.
Coalition of States has already sued over the Total Energies deal. I I would expect there were to be more lawsuits here. it feels like the only way that this administration gets corrected is through actions in the courts. And the courts have been kind to the offshore endeavors in the United States previously, in in in so much that the five that that got taken to court or took come to court and all won when he tried to halt construction there. Given how everything else has gone, you know.
We'll we'll see. I'm cautiously optimistic, Mike, but but ratepayers, you and I, we're the ones left holding the bag here.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (07:46.579)
my god, it's just incredible. There needs to be a federal law against stupidity, but you know, that would be a more perfect world. So here, our third story. Climate tech VC newsletter. The IPO boom is back, baby. Paul, what do you have to say for yourself?
Paul Gerke (07:59.866)
Woo! Do you remember losing a bunch of money on this? Cause I think I did. Back in like twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, there was that wave of climate and EV startups that went public through SPACs, those blank check shell companies that let you skip all the normal IPO scrutiny. I believed in a lot of those companies and lost a few bucks on Those companies had little revenue, missed badly, collapsed, Fisker.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (08:20.514)
Are you admitting to insider trading, Paul? I are are you All right.
Paul Gerke (08:22.795)
No, this is before I even worked in energy. I was working in television at the time. I just moved to New York City. I was making more money than I ever made in my life. And I was like, hey, look at me, I'm Mr. Investor now. Fisker was the what's in the script and I I did lose money on Fisker. I thought Fisker was super cool. The they had the ocean SUV, right? I think you can still buy those, but you can't get anyone to maintenance them. So like it's sort of like a depreciating investment, like by the day. they went bankrupt. Nicola Nicholas Founder went to prison, if you remember
And then three years after that bust, it sounds like cleantech is now back, Mike. We're back, baby. Listings up 83% off their 2024 trough. I'm those those troughs went really low though. That's not really saying all that much, but I digress. This time it's a real IPO story, not just the spacks. Energy is heading it's for the big time here. Transportation led last time. Energy is now the leading vertical. Headliners nuclear and geothermal. You may have seen X Energy Fervo.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (09:07.418)
Yeah, yeah.
Paul Gerke (09:18.609)
recently went public, both debuted over eleven billion dollars. That that's a lot of money. Most don't come online at scale until after twenty thirty. Fervo, pretty early, they're the big geothermal developer, if you don't know what they're working on. They went public at forty one thousand times revenue. I'd love to to know what the Shark Tank folks think about that, Mike. They probably wouldn't wouldn't agree with that that valuation.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (09:38.157)
Yeah. So the newsletter it brings up a quieter group of I think it's safe to say more legit energy services and equipment companies. Legends, our friends at Solve Energy, shout out to George Hirschman, EROC, is arguably more more commercially grounded, with one to three billion in trailing revenue they can deploy today. near term cash flows versus the promise of future growth, that's a big deal. These IPOs are tied to the AI build out and companies are rushing to go public before the bubble deflates.
The SPAC risk has not gone away either. Several fusion deals are announced but not closed. And if they close into a softer market, you get a repeat of twenty twenty one. that will all be determined, Paul, but you need to talk about our four story.
Paul Gerke (10:21.891)
Yeah, I do, but I just want to say real quick that when you shouted out Legends, Solve Energy, and E Rock, it sounded like you were shouting out some rappers I'd never heard of for a second, and then I was like, right, those are companies. Story number four. No, but E Rock sounds like one. I bet E Rock can can cut a track. Story four. Hey, it's my buddy Sean Wolf over at Factor This. So we yeah, I first time Sean's ever been on the show. Does he know that he's in this? When he posts this story, he's gonna be shocked to see his own name. This is cool.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (10:31.342)
George George Hirschman is not a rapper. He's a very serious CEO. boy.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (10:42.422)
What? Who?
Paul Gerke (10:50.961)
It's like looking in a mirror and seeing seeing a ghost. it's called Can PJ M's new fast track process accelerate interconnection? I'll spare my comments until after you weigh in. What are your thoughts, Mike?
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (11:00.656)
All right. So FERC, they approved PJM's new expedited interconnection track on June 9, a temporary fast track pathway to bring large shovel-ready generation projects online faster. PJM needs roughly 15,000 megawatts of new capacity to cover its deficiency, largely driven by the data center load that is swarming its system. The track allows up to 10 projects per year, each over 250 megawatts, any fuel type, including storage.
Projects have to be sponsored by a PJM state. They've got to interconnect within that state and they have to approve one hundred percent site control and reach commercial operation within three years. PJM expects a turnaround to interconnection agreement in about ten months versus the annual slog. Paul, your thoughts on your colleagues piece.
Paul Gerke (11:45.688)
Yeah. Yeah, I'm listening this is a big issue right now. So PJM's interconnection queue has been a punching bag for years and and probably rightfully so for a lot of reasons. They just started processing interconnection requests for utility scale projects, and we don't really know how that's all going to work. And they're already talking about retailering the process and maybe starting from scratch and retooling and they're adding these programs.
I know FERC is meeting about this this week to try to figure out how we might expedite large load interconnection nationwide. the catch here, Mike, is is like I think what PJM is trying to do is only attract the most serious speed to power folks. There's like a $500,000 study deposit, $15,000 per megawatt in readiness money. PJM says that it screens for serious projects. This
does do that, but it also like shuts out everybody that doesn't have the infinity CapEx spending capabilities of that same handful of like five hyperscalers we talked about earlier on the show. The 250 megawatt threshold drew protest, just sort of an arbitrary number. It favors again those massive projects. And groups like NRDC point out that renewables and storage, it's really tough to hit that bar. And the two hundred and fifty megawatt projects that do qualify are the ones most likely to hit net
network upgrade or supply chain delays anyway, which often slow down timelines. It would make this quick connect thing more complicated. Some commentators warn 10 months just isn't enough time for a thorough transmission review or real public input. FERC basically said, it's your job to decide whether PGM's plan is reasonable, not something, whether something better exists. As it's been described to me before, FERC has a toolkit. If something's broke, they can find the tool in the kit and try to make things work. It doesn't mean they necessarily have a better wrench in there.
They're gonna let this go for PJM. It's only gonna affect like ten projects a year, it sounds like Mike. It's and it's gonna be those big boys. We'll see how it plays out. I don't expect the process at PJM to stay the same for very long. It sounds like they like to tinker. Let's get to our guests, shall we?
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (13:52.877)
Yeah, I'd like to know about the fossil fuel lobbying that went on on that rule. Just saying. Yeah. Amen. And sh and Sean, I I will discount your Venmo payments to me for this for doing this from fifty down to forty dollars. So you can just send that to me this week. All right. hey, Tim McDonnell from Semaphore, he is back for he might now be the most interviewed person on the show with this. He it's kind of like he's like the messy of
Paul Gerke (13:56.464)
Yeah, shout out Sean Wolf, first time on the show, man. Hey, thanks for writing that for us.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (14:22.202)
of this week in clean tech. I think he's putting in his his record winning goal here with this appearance. Not that he gets out of bed in the morning to come on the show, but he has a he has got a really interesting piece. Hormuz will never really be open again. Tim, I know you were getting y you were feeling a little bit overshadowed reporting out of a war zone with the Iran war. Now that that's supposedly done, you'll get the war zone you live in will get more
Paul Gerke (14:29.185)
Patrick baby.
Tim (14:29.412)
I'm I'm waiting for the matching.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (14:51.808)
respect I guess, but we dither. Tell us about your take on this settlement, 'cause I I just I've been thinking about this all week and I gotta tell ya, I don't know what to make of it.
Tim (15:01.540)
Yeah.
Yeah, I I I think one thing that's clear here is that Iran's energy weapon really worked.
They took this unprecedented measure of closing off the Strait of Hormuz, which everyone had known for decades was a was a risk, but I think there was still a lot of uncertainty about whether Iran would or could ever do that. And and they did, and it predictably caused this massive backup of oil and gas supply, a billion barrels plus of oil that were taken off the market in the last few months. And you know what's been interesting is that the the impact has not been, I think, as extreme as many people.
Including myself, thought that it might be. We haven't seen the US or European benchmark oil prices exceed the level they reached after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But of course, there's been pain in you know Asian countries and in other sectors, and people are paying more for gasoline. So, but you know, I I think what's been interesting is that there's just these buffers that we've had in the in the economy over time, you know, kind of energy security buffers that we've built up, strategic reserves and and other things, kind of worked well in this case. And U.S. oil
Production, you know, definitely helped exports hitting a record high. But I think what happened here was Trump, you know, could see the the cliff coming or running down to the bottom of a lot of reserves. He that he said as much in his remarks yesterday, you know, you don't want to see bedlam. That was his quote. So you know, he clearly knew that something was coming and the the pressure was on to make a deal. And now Iran comes out of this, having shown that they're capable of closing the strait and now getting paid
Tim (16:37.750)
in the form of sanctions relief for the for the pleasure of of reopening it. So there I you know, of course Iran has suffered a lot through this, you know, th taking a lot of military damage, lost leaders,
You they face a lot of setbacks, but in but in some ways they're they're you know coming out of this in at least a strong or or possibly a stronger position. So it's just been a very interesting ride. And the last thing I'll say is, you know, we we don't know how this is gonna go. You know, I've been in Ukraine for enough years now to see ceasefire deals you know, including those that the US has been involved in negotiating, come and go and they work or they don't, and it just takes one, you know, in the straight of four moves, it takes one random guy.
die with a drone or a rocket, you know, acting a fool and then the whole thing can can fall apart. So, you know, any anything can still happen at at this moment.
Paul Gerke (17:31.419)
From a a military strategy perspective, acting a fool is generally discouraged. That's the kind of thing that creates diplomatic tension.
Tim (17:36.524)
It's just great. But you got you got these random you got random guys out there. You don't know what they're doing, so Yeah.
Paul Gerke (17:42.416)
R Randos actin fool like Mike Casey. my question for you, Tim, has to do with how they're policing the strait now because I I I keep seeing yes, I guess you'd call it like ransom payments or tolls if we're being if we're being generous, varying from like ungodly sums of money to I read somewhere that they're charging per barrel of oil and that there's crypto involved. In your reporting, what did you learn about how they're actually
you know, maximizing the value of of policing the straight up for moves right now.
Tim (18:14.136)
That's that's a great question. And I'm I'm sure there's a lot of like extra digging to do over time and into what all of those mechanisms were. I mean, I I think you know, what what's been interesting as you alluded to is you know that that there's been this sort of diversity of like one off solutions and people taking gambles on particular ships. I think there have been a few you know, w when it comes to the the US side of this effort and what the US has been doing to facilitate the movement of of oil in and out. I mean there was some great
Reporting in Reuters this week about these kind of offshore ship-to-ship transfers that the U.S. Navy's been facilitating, which is actually a technique that they learned from the Iranian and Russian shadow fleets. And and in order for those things to work, you need to have at least a few ship owners. There's some brave Greek you know ship owners out there who have been basically you know running kind of shuttle runs through the strait to bring stuff out into the into the ocean for loading. So yeah, I mean, I I you know what what Iran
Iran has had to do. I the and this is the big kind of question going forward. you know, if Iran has the opportunity through the lifting of sanctions to rejoin the kind of regular oil market, you know, how how are they going to do that? Who the customer for that is going to be, you know, they they were selling most of their oil to China at a discount before all of this. Is China gonna be willing to
you know, go back to the to the table with Iran on more like market regular prices or, you know, what how is that? Does China even want to continue buying a ton of oil right now? They've you spent the last few years building up their stockpile, which was a really important buffer in the last few months, but we're not, you know, clear about what will happen next with that. So I think there's there's a lot of unanswerable questions about what this is gonna look like moving forward. But it's gonna be really interesting.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (20:01.230)
Tim, I'm certain that Trump read your recent story saying that the strategic oil reserves were drawing down and he was envisioning what I was amateurishly predicting of six dollar gallon gasoline in Texas and Florida. He's like, Nope, we're gonna give him three hundred billion dollars and bring this puppy to a close. But here's my question. Yeah. I was trying I was I was trying to credit Tim and diminish me, but thanks for spiking the ball, Mr. Gherky. I appreciate it. No.
Paul Gerke (20:18.321)
Yeah, I wanted you to be wrong right away. I was thinking about that by the way. You were wrong like in a week.
Tim (20:23.053)
Yeah.
Paul Gerke (20:27.887)
Yeah, I'll smack it back in your face on the next show too. I think you deserve to be dragged for a while for that bull prediction going wrong so fast. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (20:34.242)
All right. All right. So Tim, what I wanna know is based on the reporting you're doing, and I know this is hard to do, what is the net impact of this development on average Americans as consumers and ratepayers? Just next six months, what happens?
Tim (20:57.282)
Yeah, I mean I th I think well, you know, you saw today for the first time since the war started that the average price of gasoline dipped below four dollars per gallon in in the US. you know, I I think the the the it's been very hard to make predictions about where the market is gonna go in the last few months 'cause I mean everyone has been, you know, saying all kinds of stuff and being wrong every time. And you know, in the last few months I think
The frankly the the bears have more often been right than the bulls and so I don't wanna make too grim of a prediction about where gasoline prices will be around the time of the midterms 'cause maybe they could they could be lower. I mean they I think they probably will be a bit lower, but but who's to say?
So, you know, I think for for consumers this this is the thing, you know, we're we're moving into a very uncertain phase of these negotiations. You know, but we're basically just back to the status quo that we were before the the war started. And now we have to do this whole nuclear negotiation with Iran. It's gonna be super complicated and take a long time and not be easy in any way. And so, you know, if we get to the midterms and people are still paying a lot of money for gasoline, but they don't see what what what was that for? What have we been paying this money for this whole time?
We still don't have a deal. I mean, maybe we will, but you know, that that's the question that, you know, Republicans and and Trump are going to have to answer in in the midterms. You know, what was what was the point of all of this? so we'll we'll see how that shakes out.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (22:21.410)
Paul, we could talk to this guy all day. We're plus twenty minutes. We probably gotta go to our cleantecher of the week.
Paul Gerke (22:25.453)
Yeah, we love to falsely advertise this as a fifteen minute show and then book guests that we want to talk to for longer than the time we're allotted. But Tim, we appreciate it. Stick around for just a second. Let's get through our cleantecher of the week. Drum roll, Brian Mendez. It is Andrew Redd, CEO of Endurance Energy. If you haven't heard of Endurance, that's a Seattle based seafloor geothermal energy developer. They just raised fifty four million bucks in Series A funding. Nothing to sneeze at. Red is a former SpaceX engineer.
Congrats to the SpaceX IPO folks, by the way. Now drilling into spots at the bottom of the ocean where tectonic plates split apart and magma heats water to more than seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Sounds cool. Congratulations, Andrew Red, CEO of Endurance Energy, our cleantecher of the week.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (23:09.952)
just saying right now, I'm not going down any small little submersible. It's not gonna not I'm not I'm not interning for these guys and I'm not going down the submersible. I don't care how cool it is.
Paul Gerke (23:14.541)
Never again. Not since the last time.
I'll get you an N sixty four controller to steer it with. Come on, Mike.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (23:23.958)
Yeah, okay. All right. So I'm gonna thank our often wonderful but not always wonderful producer Brian Mendez and Clare Quirin and Alex Petersen for gathering these stories.
Paul Gerke (23:51.077)
Anyway, thanks for joining us on this week in Clean Tech as we push way over twenty minutes. Thanks to Tim McDonald for sticking around and for weighing in with a little expertise to break up the chicanery. If you guys enjoyed the chicanery, or the seriousness, subscribe, leave a little feedback, share a story suggestion. You could read all the articles we talk about each week. There's links in the episode description as well as in the post where this thing lives on factor this dot com. We'll do this again next Friday, probably.
Mike Casey, Tigercomm (24:00.620)
Yeah, man.
Paul Gerke (24:20.443)
We do it almost every Friday. It's like a weekly thing.
Tim (24:28.696)
Thank you.