Paul Gerke and Mike Casey cover the week's top climate and clean energy stories. They dig into whether the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC can make clean energy a real political force, the Trump administration's rollback of fuel economy rules as gas tops $4.50 a gallon, and new research showing a new EV beats keeping a gas car. They break down Plug Power's 280 MW electrolyzer deal for Arcadia eFuels' Project ENDOR in Denmark. Heatmap's Jillian Goodman explains the Senate's bipartisan permitting deal and its odds. Cleantecher of the Week is Worden Marine founder James Worden.
Paul Gerke: Hey everybody and welcome to another edition of This Week in Cleantech. Your favorite 20-minute roundup of the biggest stories in climate and clean energy this week. Didn't even bother saying 15 minutes-ish. We're going to run 20. It's just the way it is. We have to accept reality. We're recording this episode on Friday, October 2nd, 2026. We have a first-time guest in waiting. It's Jillian Goodman from Heatmap joining us shortly to talk about a big story this week. If you don't know my voice by now, I'm Factor This content director Paul Gerke, joined on the program once again by cleantech commentator Mike Casey of Tigercomm. Mike, I missed you last week. Great to be reunited.
Mike Casey: You too, my man. Hey, I want you to know Jeremiah Karpowicz kept it under 20 minutes, Senator Gerke. So.
Paul Gerke: Well, that's just because he doesn't have as many interesting things to say as I do, perhaps. But, uh, let's see if he can live up to his standard. I always appreciate Jeremiah filling in. Okay. All right. Let's get to the... Let's get to the part of the show where we thank the viewers and listeners. You got any shout outs? Any people in your circle this week that uh that ruffled your feathers?
Mike Casey: All 25 listeners. I love them. I love them.
Paul Gerke: If you guys want to be a part of the show, just know you can do that. We got an email account just for this. It's twic@tigercomm.us. You can send us story suggestions, your two cents, whatever. They go right to our inboxes and we can get you right on the show that way. Uh if you're unfamiliar with the format, we do the five biggest stories in climate and clean energy as decided by uh a council of uh folks that will remain unseen, just like an... the unseen council has chosen the five stories. We start with number one. What is it, Mike?
Mike Casey: So, number one is uh Kanoa Lowman from Washington Monthly, "Why Won't the Clean Energy Industry Play Dirty?" I, I'm going to note I'm taking strong issue with the last word in that headline, but Paul, you first and then I'll have things to say.
Paul Gerke: I liked this actually and I liked the way that they did the headline. Uh I'm in favor of of what they chose to do here with Washington Monthly. So, we talk on the show uh from time to time about the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC. It's the super PAC organized by solar investors and executives that went after Chip Roy. Uh you, you, you know what, this is a Mike Casey thing. I'll let you get into all of that, but just know that the coalition spent about $5 million through August, most of it uh against three candidates, planning to spend $20 to $30 million by the end of the midterms. Um Lowman questions in the piece whether that's enough to really put fear into Washington because on the other side of the ledger, you might know that the fossil fuel industry is not shy about spending. Uh they dropped more than $200 million in the 2024 elections. Uh crypto has spent some 200 million so far this cycle. AI linked, uh you know, 200 million linked to AI at least. So most of the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition's money isn't even coming from clean energy. The vast majority of it came from crypto billionaire Chris Larsen. The group only had 23 unique donors through August. Mike Casey, your thoughts?
Mike Casey: I have many. Uh first, I'm, to be clear, I uh support this effort uh professionally and Tom Matzzie, who runs it, is a uh is a brilliant friend of mine. So I, I kind of have good news and I have bad news. The first is I'm going to quote uh Representative Eric Burlison, who said, who described Invest in Tomorrow as, quote, "almost like a prowling lion looking for the weakest part of the flock," end quote. So have they instilled fear? Yes they have. And they caught some uh overconfident, clean energy-hating uh politicians napping. Six of them. They're six for six right now. But here's the big thing. The, I think the headline, though, it describes the rough and tumble of politics with sort of um a, a uh the right, the view of the righteous. The fact of the matter is policy is downstream of politics. And if you don't play in politics as a disruptor who's disrupting within a big industry, you are being a fool. And so if you are a climate tech CEO, whether we work for you or not on the client side, and you're sitting this out so far, I am asking you, I am pushing you to get off the bench and get into the game, because if you don't, then who? If not now, when? This is the way things work and we need to stop as a sector hoping somebody rides over the horizon to our rescue, and we can't dwell comfortably in the hot tub called "everything will work out fine because we're lowest cost." No, it won't. That's not the way it works. Paul, story number two.
Paul Gerke: Well said, Mike Casey. Second story this week from Brad Plumer and Maxine Joselow from the New York Times. It's titled "Trump Sharply Scales Back Fuel Economy Rules for New Cars." Tell me about it, Casey.
Mike Casey: Okay, so here there's an, there's an old uh Zen koan, right? A saying.
Paul Gerke: Love some Zen koans. Hit me.
Mike Casey: Yeah. Yeah. If the Trump administration were to corner the market on stupid...
Paul Gerke: Mhm.
Mike Casey: Would it, FTC need to bring an antitrust suit?
Paul Gerke: That is the question. Meditate on that.
Mike Casey: Because with gas going above $5 a gallon because it's in shortage, the last thing you'd want to do to the US auto industry providing electric vehicle choice or, or mileage conservative choices would be to get rid of these fuel efficiency standards. It is the... of all the dumb things that we have covered these dummies doing over the last two and a half years, this is about as dumb as it gets. Like, it's just cornering the market on stupid. And we could give all the facts and the figures, but just simple math. People are paying more at the pump because there's a shortage of gasoline. Why would you make us less efficient when it comes to gasoline right now? It is the absolute dumbest thing we could do, in my humble opinion. Paul.
Paul Gerke: Yeah, we don't need to bring the economists into this. Um, but, but the economists are involved, disputing the administration's savings numbers. Uh, you may have seen a recent paper come out of the journal Science that found major inconsistencies in the calculations used by the administration. MIT's Chris Knittel said that when you do the analysis correctly, revoking these standards does not save consumers money, and it's for the reasons that Mr. Casey alluded to here. It's simple math. Um, gas prices are up around $4.50 a gallon on a national average. Depending on where you live, you might be paying even more than that, up more than 40% from this time last year. And this rollback, it could push US carmakers toward bigger pickups and SUVs, which are more profitable for them. We've seen that. But EV sales are also growing fast in the rest of the world. Less than 10% of new cars in the US uh sold last year were electric, in large part, I believe, because of the uh revocation of that $7,500 rebate that the Feds were offering for EVs. I think if that was out there now, Mike, coupled with the price of gas, we'd be selling a lot more EVs in the US. But that's just this one humble guy's opinion. Hit us with story three.
Mike Casey: Yeah, I, somewhere there is probably a lobbyist for Chinese automaker BYD that was working this into reality. So, our third story, uh, Michael J. Coren from the Washington Post, "Fix It or Trash It? How to Decide How Long to Keep Your Car and Home Appliances." We need to just note the headline doesn't really get to the angle that caught our attention. Paul, I thought this was a very important story and it relates to the one we just got done discussing. You first.
Paul Gerke: Yeah. As someone who drove a Dodge Neon from the time I turned 15 until I was like almost 30 years old, and had put a couple hundred thousand miles on it and replaced it with a junker engine, I, I understand the economics of this debate very well. Sometimes a set of new tires is worth more than the entire value of your vehicle. Extrapolate that into our sphere for the purpose of this article. A peer-reviewed study published in Science in August found that if you bought a new gas car tomorrow, trashed it, and then drove a brand new EV for a decade, you would still do less harm to the climate than if you just kept driving that car for 10 years. Think about that for a second. A UC Santa Cruz professor and his colleague ran thousands of data points on lifetime vehicle pollution to come up with this, and EVs came out ahead in 92% of all scenarios, even if you scrap a brand new gas car. It all comes down to efficiency. Gas engines waste about 70% of their energy, mostly as heat. Uh, in an EV, about 90% of electricity goes toward moving the car. A lot of simple math on the program. Mike, your thoughts.
Mike Casey: Yeah, and I'm going to say this as someone who drove his Honda Element for 21 years and 229,000 miles, literally till the wheel fell off on the highway. So, I want to be clear.
Paul Gerke: I got a lot... I sold that Neon for $300 cash in a parking lot to someone, by the way. I just gave him the keys. I didn't even have a title for it. I... They probably didn't do anything good with it. Anyway, sorry.
Mike Casey: So, but here's the big thing about this story. It, it covers in a backdoor way the science that has now shown that EVs are so much more efficient from a fuel standpoint, from an energy standpoint, from a climate standpoint, that the inflection point comes out to 4,000 to 7,000 miles a year. This is less than half of what the average driver puts on a car. The EV lead's only growing because the grid's getting cleaner. Batteries take less fossil fuels to build and EV efficiency keeps rising. So the same logic does, it turns out, apply to the house. Most of the carbon pollution from phones and tablets comes from making them. So repairing them makes sense. But big appliances burn most of their energy in use. Today's clothes washers has 50% more capacity and use 70% less energy than 1990. Love this story. Thought it was a killer one. Uh Paul, what's our fourth one?
Paul Gerke: Yeah, that's a good one. Although I want to note that I think my washer uses a little more energy when it's walking across the floor when we overfill it. But that's neither here nor there. Story four this week from Julia Aman at Bloomberg, titled "Plug Power Inks Electrolyzer Deal for Denmark Jet Fuel Project." Tell me about it.
Mike Casey: Yeah, Plug Power, they have been active uh for as long as I have been in this space. Hat tip to these guys. They've agreed to supply 280 megawatts of electri- electrolyzers for Arcadia eFuels' Project ENDOR. It's a facility planned for Denmark's south coast that aims to prod- to produce sustainable jet fuel.
Paul Gerke: No, I'm pretty sure Endor is the moon planet with the Ewoks. I think you, you got that wrong. That's a Star Wars reference. Anyway, sorry.
Mike Casey: All right, we're going to have to take it up with Clare Quirin there, but the plant would tap renewable grid power to make hydrogen for jet fuel. Electrolyzers use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The deal also sets Plug up to be a preferred supplier for four future Arcadia projects in Europe and the Americas, and Plug shares rose as much as 4.3% in New York trading. It follows three years of joint engineering work, and deliveries will begin once Arcadia's project issues a notice to proceed. I love this and I'll tell you, um, I think Plug Power stock is worth an investment because if no... fossil fuel supplies keep being tight, um, in the aviation sector...
Paul Gerke: No, you can't, so you can't tell me that because I was one of the suckers who bought the top of Plug and lost my pants, and I'm not a smart investor, and so that was alongside a bunch of other dumb investments. But I believed in what they were doing several years ago and I, I went along for the ride, and now I've got a big red number in my Robinhood account. So, don't tell me to buy Plug stock. I believed in that company. Uh yeah, what I'm holding now is probably worth uh a couple bucks. I'll buy you a pumpkin spice latte with what I've got in, in Plug now. But anyway, not to disparage the company, because I truly believe in what they're doing and I think this is very cool. Europe needs projects like this, too, Mike. Starting in 2030, uh more than 1% of jet fuel supplied at EU airports has got to be synthetic. It's got to be made from green hydrogen, carbon capture, uh captured carbon rather. Uh, and that goes up to 35% by 2050, but nobody, as you know, in the space is making any of that stuff yet. And Plug was one of the, you know, the forebears in this space. Um, the sustainable aviation fuel airlines reported buying in 2025 was synthetic. Europe has roughly 60 of those projects in development. Not a single one has reached a final investment decision. And Endor, the moon planet we mentioned, is getting closer than most. It signed an EU Innovation Fund funding agreement in March. Last week, Uniper agreed to buy 40,000 metric tons a year for more than 10 years. Pretty big agreement there. Uh about half of what the plant plans to make. All right, Mike, let's bring our guest in. Story number five.
Mike Casey: Number five took five people at Heatmap News to compile. It's a big story. Robinson Meyer, Emily Pontecorvo, Jael Holzman, all of them are This Week in Cleantech veterans, Matthew Zeitlin, and Jillian Goodman. But we look past our three formers to say, who's the star of that show? It is clearly Jillian Goodman. So, we're like, Jillian Goodman is coming on the show. Robinson, who, don't even know that guy. All right. Um, "The Senate's Big... The Senate's Big Bipartisan Permitting Deal, Explained." Hey, Jillian, great to have you here. If people have not read this very impressive piece of reporting, um, which we want them to do, can you give us the big takeaway from this project that you and your four colleagues have put together? Cuz it's, I think this is a really good story and good lord knows we have covered the many, many flirtations of the Senate with a, a permitting deal before. So tell us what's new and how likely it is to pass.
Jillian Goodman: I mean, that's the $64,000, 417-page question here, is how likely it is to pass. We've seen a lot of uh reactions to it in the past few days. Um some sort of... Jared Huffman got up and said, you know, that he, he didn't like it, and the green groups are now organizing to say, we don't like it, we don't want it to pass. Um however, a, a lot of the sort of more abundance-oriented and more um we-must-build-oriented groups are very behind this bill. And so the big takeaway essentially is that it's a big change. I think it cannot be understated how big a revolution in permitting in the US this would be. Um and it undertakes that in, like, across an, an enormous number of federal functions in terms of how we interpret key environmental statutes, how we plan and deploy energy, um even how we organize the process of applying for and processing permits. So it would, it's a really huge bill with a lot to digest. We're still digesting it. We published uh another story yesterday. We've got a couple more in the pipeline for today and we're even talking about more next week. So, there's, there's really a lot to dig into.
Paul Gerke: So, I was taken aback a little by the notion that some clean energy folks might be against this bill, because based on my understanding of it, and keep in mind this just came out a few days ago, and so we're all still digesting, as you mentioned, Jillian, but my take on it is that it read as a pretty clean energy bill, and particularly so considering what we've been looking at for the last two years in the Trump administration, where a lot of speed to power initiatives have taken the front seat while the carbon reduction initiatives have had to get comfortable in the back.
Jillian Goodman: I think there are a few reasons why. And you know, to be clear, I am on no side here. We're just sort of arbitrating everyone's positions. So, on the one hand, there are still some sticking points with the bill. We're not sure exactly where they are, but from what we've heard, we understand they're with some of the wind provisions and making sure that the administration um cannot simply uh arbitrarily stop wind projects. Now, the, the bill includes measures to basically define what a pattern of arbitrary treatment would be, um and makes that illegal. However, there are ways that the administration... we've seen the administration get around existing law in so many ways that I think they're still trying to, to plug a few holes there. There are a few other reasons why green groups, clean energy groups largely in favor of this bill. To the best of my understanding, it's environmental groups who have a lot of big objections that fall into a couple of different buckets. One are that a lot of the tech-neutral uh provisions apply to oil and gas as well as, as renewable and clean energy. So it would facilitate, you know, in theory, and I'm, I'm so hesitant to say anything definitive about this bill because again, it's so huge and there's still so much analysis to do, but it would not stop development of oil and gas, which is a huge, like, you know, clean energy, sustainability, conservation group uh priority. It also would severely limit the ability of, of groups like Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, to sue to stop projects under development. And the, these are the things that come under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act. And that's something we're actively digging into right now and trying to understand. But you know, what I can say right now is that those effects appear to be significant.
Mike Casey: Jillian, I'm going to put you on the spot. If you were a betting reporter, which I know you are not, what are the...
Paul Gerke: I'm a betting reporter. Can I bet on this? Wait, what is it?
Mike Casey: You bet. You bet poorly on Plug Power, Paul.
Paul Gerke: Yeah, I bet poorly often.
Mike Casey: You should go against the other side of whatever you're...
Paul Gerke: Yeah, exactly.
Mike Casey: You should go against the public here. What, what's being said about the odds of passage?
Jillian Goodman: I think it's still too early to say. You know, I'm, I'm fairly conservative in where I put my money. I think it's still too early to say. Um, you know, this is... this does seem to have... I mean, this does have bipartisan support in the Senate. That side, it would need to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate, which means that it would need to keep all the Democrats on, or at least a significant number of Democrats on side. As far as the House, it depends on Mike Johnson's willingness to bring it to a vote, and that's never a guarantee. So, there's still a lot up in the air. Um, and we'll see how the next five weeks unfold. It's not... they're not going to bring it to a vote until after the midterm elections, which is another uh important dynamic here.
Mike Casey: Paul, do you want to take last question, because we are heading toward a sub-20-minute episode.
Paul Gerke: Jillian, I just got to ask, how many times did you have to resist making the Baja Blast joke, and how many times did you actually make it? Because it's not every day that we get one of those clunky legislative acronyms and get to spin it into a delicious citrusy lemon-lime drink reference, you know?
Jillian Goodman: Let's say we had some fun coming up with headlines for this story, and you may yet see a Baja Blast joke in a story uh very, very soon.
Paul Gerke: I was trying to find a different way out, like Banjo-Kazooie, like BAAJA and Kazooie, but the retro N64 title probably only hits a small subset of the audience that would, that would even begin to understand what I'm getting at there. So, we go back to the drawing board.
Mike Casey: Jillian, most important question. Is it data centers or data centers? Who's right? Come on.
Jillian Goodman: I gotta go with data and two words. That's, that's Heatmap house style. Two words.
Mike Casey: Heatmap has a house style and it's data, not data.
Jillian Goodman: Well, the pronunciation is up to you, but it's two words.
Paul Gerke: Okay. Eat your heart out. It's you and Clara Hudson alone on an island and the mispronunciation. I'm just saying. But hey, we got to go to our Cleantecher of the Week.
Mike Casey: Let's do it. Cleantecher of the Week.
Paul Gerke: Drum roll, please. It is Jillian Goodman for... No, I'm just kidding. Sorry, Jillian. Maybe one day you'll be Queentecher of the Week. It's James Worden, founder of Worden Marine. She got excited for a second. I shouldn't have done that. James has been building solar-powered vehicles since the 1980s. Wow, that's wild. He started with a wood and cardboard solar go-kart. It won the Massachusetts State Science Fair. You still got it, I'm sure. It went on to help start MIT's Solar Electric Vehicle Team, co-founded Solectria with his late wife. Now he's taking that vision to the water. His startup's TruSolar20 boat, uh named Anita after his late wife in her honor, can run all day on six solar panels at about 8 miles per hour. A bigger version is being built for ferries and river tours. Sounds like wild stuff, James. Uh you sound like one of those legendary tinkerers. You deserve the Cleantecher of the Week title. Congratulations.
Mike Casey: Absolutely. Good shout out to Clare Quirin and Alex Petersen for helping us gather these stories.
Paul Gerke: You just named the invis- the invisible panel of story selectors. I thought we were going to keep them...
Mike Casey: Oh no, we name them every show.
Paul Gerke: Um, I tease. Thank you, the listener, for joining us for another round of This Week in Cleantech. And one last shout out to Jillian Goodman from Heatmap. Please go check out the piece on the permitting bill. I think it's the biggest story in our space in quite some time. You should learn all about it before it even comes up for a vote in the lame-duck uh sess- session, if and when it does. If you enjoyed the show today, please subscribe, give a little feedback, share a story suggestion to the email we mentioned at the top. And don't forget, you can check out every article we talk about on this program. Just click the links in the episode description as well as in the post where this thing lives on factorthis.com. Until next time, be good people.