This Week in Cleantech covers Georgia Republicans rallying behind Qcells solar manufacturing jobs despite federal tax-credit rollbacks; Google, Nvidia and major utilities launching a coalition to make data centers flexible grid partners; oil executives warning that a long-predicted fuel crisis, driven by Strait of Hormuz disruptions, has now arrived; and a new S&P Global report arguing rich and developing economies need different transition playbooks. Guest Jake Spring of The Washington Post joins to unpack the EPA's rollback of Biden-era power plant rules. The episode closes with Dulcie Madden of Dig Energy as Cleantecher of the Week.

Episode 148: Featuring Jake Spring of The Washington Post

Overview

1. A solar industrial complex is turning Republicans into believers — POLITICO
2. Tech giants launch flexible-power coalition for data centers — Axios
3. Oil Executives Say the Great Fuel Crisis Is Here — The Wall Street Journal
4. There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for the energy transition — The Financial Times
5. Trump’s EPA is ending one of the nation’s biggest climate protections — The Washington Post

Paul Gerke: Hey everybody, welcome back for another round of This Week in Cleantech, your favorite 15-minute or so roundup of the biggest stories in climate and energy each week. Today is Friday, September 18th, 2026. We've got a returning guest that we lured back into our clutches. Jake Spring from the Washington Post is waiting in the lobby. I'm Factor This content director Paul Gerke, joined once more by cleantech commentator Mike Casey of Tigercomm.

If you guys want to be a part of it, you can reach us anytime. twic@tigercomm.us. Mike, get to our first story this week. What are we talking about?

A Solar Industrial Complex Is Turning Republicans Into Believers

Mike Casey: All right. Our first story is by Zack Colman at Politico, and he says, "A solar industrial complex is turning Republicans into believers." Paul Gerke, are you?

Paul Gerke: Yeah, we're talking about the Qcells plant out in Bartow County, Georgia, where President Trump won three-quarters of the vote back in 2024. They're turning into some of solar's biggest supporters. If you haven't been paying attention to what's going on down there, there's the Hanwha Qcells factory in Cartersville. That's that big end-to-end facility, almost a mile long, $2.3 billion or so, opened in June. They make every part of the solar panel under one roof — ingot, wafer, cells, modules, all the way up — which is a far cry from most US manufacturing efforts. That's actually the first US facility that does all of that, and it followed Qcells' original Dalton, Georgia plant. You might recall that opened back in 2019 as a response to the first wave of tariffs on polysilicon and the like in Trump's first term. The Cartersville plant alone employs about 2,000 people. The mayor says the town went from asking where the jobs are to asking where the workers are. It's a nice place to be in, I guess.

Mike, your thoughts?

Mike Casey: So, State Senator Chuck Hufstetler told Politico that if Congress nixes the tax credits homeowners were counting on to buy solar, and without it, he's worried about the future of other solar factories in the state. State senator, thank you. We hope you will step up and express that concern to people who can restore the tax credit.

So, state Rep. Matthew Gambill says he sees himself really as a champion for jobs, not really as a champion for solar. He led a group of state lawmakers who tried and failed to get Republicans in Congress to save the consumer tax credits and the bonus for American-made content. Qcells' executives say they're working to depoliticize solar and see Trump's new tariff price floors as helpful, but say factories won't thrive without steady demand. Analyst Wood Mackenzie expects flat solar additions over the next 5 years despite growing need for power.

Tech Giants Launch Flexible Power Coalition for Data Centers

Paul Gerke: Story number two. Our second story this week is from Amy Harder over at Axios. It's titled Tech Giants Launch Flexible Power Coalition for Data Centers. Tell me about it, Mike.

Mike Casey: Yes, sir. We've had Amy on the show. I want to note Google and Nvidia — perhaps you've heard of them. They're backing a new coalition with startup Emerald AI called the AI Energy Management Alliance, aimed at getting data centers to flex their power demand. It launched Wednesday with 20 companies and organizations involved, including utilities Entergy, National Grid and AES, and power producers Constellation Energy and RWE.

Data centers have always been treated as giant 24/7 power users. The coalition wants to change that, so that data centers can reliably cut their grid demand when supplies get tight and connect faster, and skip some of the costly grid upgrades. An earlier version of this group started back in 2014 to push demand response but had gone largely inactive before this revival.

Paul Gerke: Mike, I just did an interview this week with a company that was selected as part of the Google startup accelerator that's working on software that does exactly this — a flexible data center. Basically, you make a deal with the utility for a certain amount of hard, reliable capacity, and the rest of it is flexible depending on conditions, and it can help sites get online like 3 to 5 years faster than they would otherwise. And we all know speed to power is such a critical part of that equation right now.

Mike Casey: So, Google says it's already committed about 1 gigawatt of power demand that it can reduce when needed through various utility agreements around the country. Now, Google's obviously going to be a bit of an outlier amongst those customers. New polling released the same day as the report we mentioned shows that 84% of Americans now say they're concerned about data centers' impact on local electricity prices. The last number I saw was north of 70% don't want one in their community. More than half are now extremely or very concerned about AI's environmental impacts, and that's up from like 40% or so a year ago. In a rare point of bipartisan agreement, Democrats and Republicans are pretty aligned here, despite what you might see — 79% and 76% respectively backing a requirement that data center developers pay for grid upgrades that their projects need.

The whole bargain here depends on data centers actually delivering that flexibility though when they're called upon. Emerald AI's CEO says they should only qualify for faster connections if that ability to cut demand is both verifiable and enforceable. Federal regulators only directed grid operators back in June to start looking at these kinds of options. So, it's going to take some time to sort out, but we know a little flexibility goes a really long way.

Oil Executives Say the Great Fuel Crisis Is Here

Paul Gerke: Yeah. Our third story, by Benoît Morenne and Collin Eaton from the Wall Street Journal, titled "Oil Executives Say the Great Fuel Crisis Is Here."

Mike Casey: Yeah. So do the gas stations down the street. There's this one guy who really tries to keep it under four bucks, and if it's possible to get a gallon of unleaded for under four, he's going to have that on the sign. And brother, we are not looking back toward the four — we're headed toward five in a hurry. And I'm not driving a diesel rig, thank goodness, from what I've seen at the signs folks have been posting this week.

Oil executives say the fuel crisis they've been talking about for months, to the point that our wives stopped listening, has now arrived. Commercial fuel stocks keep depleting. Strategic crude reserves can't be tapped much further. You heard about the attacks last week that knocked out a major crude pipeline in Saudi Arabia that had been bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. It strands an estimated two and a half million barrels a day from an already tight global market. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said at an energy conference in Austin — I forgot how to read now, I got all worked up — the mechanisms that had been cushioning gas prices and supply have largely been exhausted. That system doesn't have the buffers that it once did. Those diesel prices I mentioned just hit a record $6.23 a gallon. Gasoline, which dipped below four bucks in most places this summer, is now up to a national average of $4.32 and climbing.

Paul Gerke: Mike, have you seen it at the pump?

Mike Casey: I have. And I wrote this on LinkedIn — I am not a national security expert or a military expert. But you know, if you're the Iranians and you can basically shut down the Strait of Hormuz and keep it shut, and your proxies can attack backdoor ways of getting Middle Eastern oil out, why wouldn't you do this, and do it all the way through the midterms? I'm here to predict, inexpertly, that I think in the next 5 to 6 weeks gas is going to start inching towards $6 a gallon. And when that happens in places like Florida and Texas, people are going to lose their minds. I mean, you've got an entire way of life that's built around long commutes and large vehicles, and you're reintroducing mileage thinking to a public that for a long time didn't have to think about it. And it's going to be a shock. So, I think that's the really big shock here.

But, you know, you've got Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — never very far from a bad idea — and here he's saying prices under the Biden administration were just as high. He blamed Biden for shutting down refineries and told reporters to make sure they use the word "temporary" when writing about current prices. Thank you, Secretary Burgum, for your journalistic instructions. I'm sure Paul and all the people we have on the show will be busy following that. I usually just try to shut up about political things, but why are we still talking about the Biden administration?

Paul Gerke: Exactly. When does that stop? When do we stop finger-pointing and just say, "Hey, we have a current problem — a temporary problem, but our problem."

Mike Casey: Yeah, who knows, man. We better go to our fourth story.

There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Solution for the Energy Transition

Paul Gerke: Yeah, let's get moving before we find ourselves in the weeds again. Story number four this week. It's Martha Weir over at the Financial Times, titled "There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Solution for the Energy Transition." What fits then, Mike?

Mike Casey: A new S&P Global report argues energy and climate planning needs to stop treating the energy transition as one global plan, since rich and developing countries are working from two different starting points. Developing countries must expand their energy systems rather than swap out fossil fuels for clean technologies like the transition assumes. Everyone assumes data centers are what's driving global energy demand, but S&P claims most of the growth is coming from emerging markets and developing economies. They're on track to grow energy demand 60% by 2060, which is like adding an entire second China to the world's energy system. China drove energy growth for 25 to 30 years — its energy needs are plateauing now as it drives the clean energy transition. Developing economies are where growth is headed next.

Paul, your thoughts?

Paul Gerke: Yeah, you said an entire second China. My in-laws gave us an entire second set of china and we'd have no use for it. So, I can't imagine how cumbersome that would be.

They're projecting here that even under the aggressive decarbonization paths — don't hold your breath — most developing countries will not reach net zero until the end of the century. Some advanced economies could get there by 2060. First, these countries need to make efficiency upgrades, they need to switch fuels, and then after that is the hard stuff, the stuff we really haven't figured out yet — heavy industry, long-haul transport, carbon capture. S&P's takeaway is that policymakers need a completely new framework that weighs affordability, security and economic benefit country by country, instead of a one-size-fits-all global plan as their north star.

Mike, our last story this week — and our last story is not corny — is by Jake Spring, who is also not corny.

EPA Repeals Biden-Era Rules Limiting Power Plants' Climate Pollution

Mike Casey: He writes for the Washington Post: "EPA Repeals Biden-Era Rules Limiting Power Plants' Climate Pollution."

Paul Gerke: The story this week, Jake — pollution, I'm gonna say the right word since Washington Post editors are going full geek. Jake Spring, welcome back to the show. We have not matured one bit since you were last with us. Sorry about that, but you know what you got yourself into.

Mike Casey: My take on your story could be translated as "fossil fuel lobbyists earn extra billings," but perhaps I'm just a cynic.

Paul Gerke: Tell us the big takeaway on the story.

Jake Spring: Thanks for having me back, guys. Appreciate it. And yeah, I am in fact a bit corny, but hopefully I won't show that off too much right now.

Mike Casey: It's your chance to shine.

Jake Spring: But yeah, I mean this story — listen, I guess it was expected. You know, Lee Zeldin, to his credit, he came in as EPA administrator. He said, "Hey, we're going to do all these things." They put out a proposal. "Hey, we're going to do this, and this is getting done." I guess the big surprise is just that they added on, "Okay, we're going to propose to go even further. We're not going back to just Obama — let's get rid of every standard that ever existed before this." So, they're going deeper on this one.

Paul Gerke: So, what does this really mean, Jake, to you and to me and to everybody else that has to live in the world on the other side of this? What does it really mean?

Jake Spring: Yeah, I mean, I would guess it means the most for natural gas. I still find it hard to believe people are going to go out and build coal plants — I mean, the US government is funding a few of them, but the economics of it don't really seem to bear out. But it's basically saying power producers, power generators, can do what they want. It's up to them to decide whether that's economical or not. They're not going to get in the way and say you have to install this or that technology. So, I think that's the main takeaway.

Paul Gerke: Just a quick follow-up before you jump in, Mike — Jake, does that apply to all the temporary generation solutions that the Metas and the hyperscalers of the world are rolling out, these loud, noisy diesel machines as temporary solutions while they figure out whether they're behind the meter or grid connection?

Jake Spring: I don't believe it does. The EPA laws are Byzantine and sliced a million different ways. I don't think this is in that slice. No.

Mike Casey: And Jake, I know this is almost like a Captain Obvious question, but this is beneficial for the natural gas lobby.

Jake Spring: Yes. Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, they'll no longer have to pursue these types of equipment that they said was unfeasible. I mean, it is expensive. So, yeah, they'll have to spend less money on compliance for sure.

Mike Casey: Well, they're a struggling industry. Like, they hardly make any money. So, I think this is a reasonable thing to do.

Paul Gerke: I mean, if you're living in a homeless shelter like a lot of these gas executives are — I don't think "cynic" is a strong enough word for you. We need a superlative to cynic.

Mike Casey: Where's your compassion?

Paul Gerke: Where is your compassion, Gerke? But you know what we got to do now? We got to go to Cleantecher of the Week, because we're trying to keep this bad boy under 20 minutes.

Mike Casey: Senator Gerke, all right, you're going to cut Jake off that fast? Unreal. He comes back to the show and we're like, "Sorry, Jake." Jake, is there anything else you didn't get into in the piece that you want to share before we do Cleantecher of the Week? I'm grabbing the wheel.

Jake Spring: I mean, I'll just say, in terms of lobbyists making their money — it sounds like the government came in, Zeldin and them came in wanting to do this anyway. Nobody had to sit down with them and say, "Please do this." I think, you know, because he is a lobbyist.

Paul Gerke: Mike Casey, everybody. All right, this week's Cleantecher of the Week. Drum roll, please. It's not Lee Zeldin — unsurprisingly. It's Dulcie Madden, co-founder and CEO of Dig Energy. If you haven't heard about it, her small startup spent 5 years developing technology in a New Hampshire barn. Who among us? And this month, it completed its first commercial job drilling a set of geothermal wells for a Boston office building, using a high-pressure water jet that cut water use by 90%. The approach in total could cut geothermal drilling costs by up to 80%. And the company's already got bookings with jobs into mid-2027. Congratulations, Ms. Madden, co-founder and CEO of Dig Energy, our Cleantecher of the Week.

Mike Casey: And starting your company in a New Hampshire barn makes you officially a badass. I just got to say — that's severe badassery. All right, speaking of badasses, we want to thank Clare Quirin and Alex Petersen for gathering these stories. And I guess we'll acknowledge our wonderful producer, Brian Mendes.

Paul Gerke: Terrific producer, Brian Mendes. You should look up the last time Mike Casey made a bold time-based prediction on our show — I think it got proven wrong by the next day. So, make sure you've got that clip ready for when gas prices go down to $3.50 this weekend, and just be ready to run it next week.

Anyway, just want to thank you all for joining This Week in Cleantech. Special shout out to Jake Spring for sticking around for another episode. If you enjoyed the show, subscribe, leave a little feedback, share a story suggestion. You can reach us at the email address we mentioned. You can also find all the articles we talk about each week — they're in the links in the episode description and in the post where this thing lives on factorthis.com. Until next time, be good everyone.