Paul Gerke (00:00.912)
Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of This Week in Cleantech. Another day, another dollar, another Friday, another 15-minute-ish roundup of the biggest stories in climate and clean energy every week.
This is being recorded for Friday, February 27th, 2026. We’re recording it on a Thursday in case anything crazy happens in the interim—don’t blame us.
If you don’t know my face and voice by now, I’m Factor This content director Paul Gerke, joined as always by cleantech commentator Mike Casey of Tigercomm.
We also have a recurring guest on the show—I think it lends some validity to the program when people are willing to come back and have another conversation with us, Mike. So bravo to us for that.
Elizabeth Weise from USA Today is in our lobby waiting to join us—we’ll get to her in just a moment. In the meantime, Mike, how are you?
Mike Casey (00:43.870)
I’m good, friend. I must tell our listeners that Brian Mendez was cracking himself up before the show started. It was quite impressive—and none better than those he supplies to himself.
But anyway, we’d like to give two listener shoutouts: David Lavesque, program coordinator at Solar Austin, and Nasikul Islam, director of technology engineering and ventures at Exceed Geo Energy.
Talked to both those guys yesterday—they said they really liked the show. I’m like, good, you’re getting a listener shoutout. So they’re stuck with it anyway.
Paul Gerke (01:18.744)
Mike Casey’s like, let me bust out this Word document—I’m putting you in the script for tomorrow. I’m reading your names, darn it.
No, seriously, shoutout to both of you. Thank you so much for sharing some feedback with us. We love to hear from the viewers and listeners of the program—we want to make you a part of the show as much as possible.
So if you’ve got a story or an opinion you want to see covered—or two cents to spare—just email us. The email address is TWIC at tigercomm with two M’s dot U.S.
As always, we’ve got five of the biggest stories in clean energy and technology this week to talk about. Let’s start with number one—since that’s the first number chronologically. Mike, get us started.
Mike Casey (01:53.928)
I was going to say that I was going to lie and say none of this is scripted—but that would be obvious because of the words I’m about to read.
Our first story is by our very own Paul Gerke.
Paul Gerke (02:02.155)
What? Cool! I actually didn’t even know that I was in the show once again. I love to be surprised.
Mike Casey (02:09.002)
Uh-huh, uh-huh—Data Centers Done Right: Xcel and Form Energy Team Up to Power Google Operation in Minnesota.
Folks, I want to be clear—Paul Gerke is forcing two stories into this lineup, and I will declare both of them. This is one of them because he needs some clicks. So give him some clicks.
Paul Gerke, talk about your own story.
Paul Gerke (02:25.511)
That’s not—first of all, that’s not true, because I didn’t even send you this one. You found it organically, and it actually means something to me. So credit where credit’s due here.
There are times I send you a story and I’m like, “Hey, this is pretty good, put it in the show.” This wasn’t one of those times.
But this is a super important story, and I’m glad that you saw that because it was one of those times where—like, not to brag—but my instincts were kind of right on this.
I saw this press release come down from Xcel, and the headline was whatever—“Xcel and Google are building a data center.” Yeah, okay. I’ve got ten fingers, right?
But then when I read it, there were some really interesting clauses in there about exactly how they were going to do this and how it was going to benefit Minnesota and the community at large.
And I was like, this feels an awful lot like data centers done right.
I sent it to our content team chat, it lingered there for a couple hours, then I saw Jennifer Granholm post about it—former energy secretary—saying this is such a great concept for reasons one through five.
And I was like—that’s exactly what I thought.
Paul Gerke (continued)
So if you haven’t seen this yet, Minnesota utility Xcel Energy is going to power a new Google data center in Pine Island, Minnesota—a town of about 4,000 people.
Local opposition has been fierce, as it often is, but the project includes major community benefits:
Google covers 100% of grid upgrade costs
1.9 GW of new clean generation
A 300 MW iron-air battery from Form Energy
This is long-duration storage—100 hours, one of the longest in the world—and helps Minnesota meet its 100% carbon-free by 2040 goal.
This is one of those cases where the fine print actually supports the project.
Mike, what did you think?
Paul Gerke (05:30.458)
Sorry, this is what happens when you let me talk about myself.
Second story—Aman Tripathi at Interesting Engineering. This one caught my eye because it’s a Mike Casey story: U.S. Particle Accelerators Turn Nuclear Waste Into Electricity, Cutting Radioactive Life by 99.7%.
Isn’t this one of your scruples about nuclear, Mike?
Mike Casey (05:50.376)
Yeah, so this would be the second story that one could suspect that Paul Gerke pushed. I want to come clean—the first one was our idea, not his, because it is his birthday and we wanted to give him some credit once a year. Just go with it. Just go with it, man.
Okay—researchers at DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are advancing accelerator-driven systems, or ADS, which transmute nuclear waste into safer forms and, in the process, create heat that can be used to generate zero-carbon electricity.
If paired with partitioning and recycling, the process could cut nuclear waste’s dangerous lifespan from 100,000 years down to 300 years. That’s a 99% reduction.
I will say—I’ve been a nuclear skeptic, not a nuclear hater. Waste is the problem.
I would point out that 300 years is a long time for a group of humans to rationally and responsibly manage a resource. Hasn’t happened a lot in human history.
Paul Gerke, your thoughts?
Paul Gerke (07:01.198)
Yeah, I mean, to make this economically viable, there’s got to be some work done here.
Researchers are trying to improve accelerator efficiency—redesigning key components so they can run at warmer temperatures, which would cut down on cooling costs.
They’re also partnering with companies like RadiaBeam, General Atomics, Stellant Systems, and Jefferson Lab to move ADS from lab scale to commercial deployment.
You raise valid points, Mike, but I love the idea and the ingenuity here. This is what the AI age is supposed to bring us, right?
Story number three.
Mike Casey (07:32.794)
Amen. Yes, yes.
Yusuf Khan, Wall Street Journal: Clean Energy Manufacturers Set to Muddle Through Fresh Tariff Turmoil. Gerke.
Paul Gerke (07:43.792)
What a mess, Mike.
Clean energy manufacturers are facing new uncertainty after the Supreme Court ruled that emergency power tariffs were unlawful.
Trump responded by slapping a 10% tariff globally—which may now be 15%—nobody really knows what’s going on.
This back-and-forth is endangering investment in U.S. cleantech. I’ve reported on these concerns firsthand—they’re everywhere right now.
Battery storage is a big part of this—tariffs are slowing development, even as batteries become critical to grid stability and data center demand.
Some argue tariffs would need to be 25% or higher to actually spur domestic production.
Meanwhile, there’s talk of national security tariffs under Section 232, which adds even more uncertainty.
Mike, your thoughts?
Mike Casey (08:42.482)
A company you might have heard of—Tesla—recently flagged the impact of tariffs, noting its energy storage business is especially exposed because battery cells are sourced from China.
They reported a $400 million quarterly hit tied to tariffs.
Meanwhile, many import restrictions from the Biden administration still apply.
Bloomberg reported that the Commerce Department set preliminary duties of 126% on solar imports from India, plus steep rates on Indonesia and Laos.
Still, solar stocks rose after the Supreme Court ruling, with investors cautiously optimistic about tariff relief.
Paul, our fourth story.
Paul Gerke (09:30.286)
No, I’ve got so much to say—but since you let me blather, I’m going to keep chugging along. We do have a guest waiting for us.
Story number four by Olivia Wang at Sightline Climate: Data Center Outlook: Half of 2026 Pipeline May Not Materialize.
Say it ain’t so, Mike Casey. Ghost projects in the queue?
Mike Casey (09:47.446)
Whoops.
While announced 2026 capacity signals another year of explosive growth, Sightline Climate suggests that 30 to 50% of that pipeline may not come online this year.
They’re tracking 190 gigawatts across 777 large data centers announced since 2024.
Only about 5 of the 16 GW expected in 2026 are actually under construction.
Last year, 26% of expected capacity was delayed, and another 10% pushed back timelines without notice.
Paul, your thoughts?
Paul Gerke (10:41.144)
I think the colocation argument is getting hot and heavy.
Companies are bringing their own power—which solves some problems but creates others.
Experts like Tim Hade are saying the real solution is connecting to the grid, even if it’s messy.
Keeping everything off-grid creates redundancy and inefficiency—and doesn’t help ratepayers.
I could talk about this forever, but let’s get to our guest.
Mike Casey (11:35.114)
All right, for our last segment, we are joined by returning guest Beth Weiss—she was one of the first people on this show way back when to talk about her original research in February 2024.
It is now February 2026, and she is back with a big package—new USA Today project tracking county-level roadblocks to wind and solar development.
Beth Weise, welcome back.
Beth Weise (12:03.384)
Always a pleasure—or a pleasure again. Though I am number five and not number one. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Mike Casey (12:11.946)
Top five.
All right, so we had you on the show to discuss NIMBYism toward U.S. solar and wind, and at that time you reported that 15% of U.S. counties had serious blocks to new projects.
You’ve since updated that data for 2024 and 2025—now 24% of U.S. counties have some form of roadblocks. Nearly one in four counties across the U.S.
What were your big observations? This is a massive amount of reporting.
Beth Weise (12:44.078)
Yeah—three years. What was I thinking?
When we did this story in 2023, I thought I kind of knew where clean energy was going, and then, well—that all got blown up.
So we said, let’s see what happens in 2025. Now we’ve got a three-year dataset, and we’ve put all the data up—easily scrapable if anybody wants to play with it.
What struck me is the speed with which this is happening. This is all county-level—nothing federal.
People are either putting outright bans or significant impediments or moratoria in place.
There are 3,142 counties in the U.S. We didn’t include D.C.
645 counties: difficult or impossible to build wind
261 counties: difficult or impossible to build solar
And those numbers are increasing—especially solar.
As soon as you start building it, people start banning it.
Paul Gerke (14:26.574)
What sort of impediments are we talking about?
Is it everything from setbacks to noise concerns? Are we still worried about thermal runaway in battery plants?
Beth Weise (14:39.054)
I didn’t track battery plants—when we started in 2023, they weren’t a big factor.
It’s interesting—if you look over time, the concerns shift.
In the 2000s, people worried about:
landfill waste
turbine noise
thermal runaway
Those still exist, but now the biggest concerns are:
viewscape (it ruins the landscape)
farmland loss (we won’t be able to grow food)
exporting power (we generate it, but cities use it)
And then there are newer concerns—like rain washing heavy metals out of solar panels and contaminating groundwater.
Mike Casey (16:33.758)
Beth, if you could add one more layer of data, what would it be? Funding? Outside groups? Election cycles?
Beth Weise (16:51.875)
It wouldn’t be funding—it’s information.
In a perfect world, I’d track who’s spreading these ideas nationally.
But honestly, it doesn’t take much—just a Facebook group. Communities pick it up from there.
And here’s the issue: even if the claims aren’t true, they still influence votes.
And when officials support projects—they often get voted out.
Mike Casey (17:53.002)
We had Amy Harder on, and she pointed toward possible fossil fuel industry influence shaping public opinion.
Second question—how much of this is real concern vs. socially acceptable reasoning masking deeper issues like identity or distrust?
Beth Weise (18:40.814)
Anecdotally, it’s not the farmers opposing this.
It’s often newer residents—people who moved to rural areas for a certain lifestyle.
You’ll hear:
“I’ve got five acres and chickens”—versus someone with 5,000 acres actually farming.
These newer residents want to preserve a “bucolic” environment.
In contrast, long-standing communities—like one I visited in Utah—embraced solar because it helped fund schools.
Where there’s trust and cohesion, projects succeed.
Where there’s population turnover, opposition rises.
Mike Casey (20:42.154)
Paul, we’re about out of time—last question or Cleantecher of the Week?
Paul Gerke (20:46.032)
Let me squeeze one in.
Beth, you mention local governments using rules that sound reasonable but function like bans.
Are you seeing repeated language across counties?
Beth Weise (21:09.657)
Some cut-and-paste, but mostly local borrowing—neighboring counties copying each other.
Who writes the original language? That’s a good question.
But yes, once one county restricts projects, others nearby tend to follow.
Mike Casey (22:10.484)
All right, Paul Gerke, we’ve got to go to Cleantecher of the Week.
Paul Gerke (22:13.154)
Yeah, we ran long—but that’s because we let Beth talk, not me rambling.
This week’s Cleantecher of the Week: Gonzalo Castro de la Mata, executive director at Earth Now.
He recently published an op-ed about shifting climate conversations from goals to implementation—focusing on energy security and scalable solutions.
Congrats, Gonzalo—our Cleantecher of the Week.
Mike Casey (22:47.996)
I suppose we have to thank our wonderful producer Brian Mendez, and Alex Peterson and Clare Quirin for helping gather these stories.
Paul Gerke (22:54.574)
Brian Mendez is over here tapping his watch—get moving, fellas. Past 15 minutes five minutes ago. Thank you.
Mike Casey (23:01.876)
Senator Gerke, bring this to a wrap, my friend.
Paul Gerke (23:04.612)
Beth, thank you so much for joining us on This Week in Cleantech.
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You can read every article we discussed in the episode description or on factorthis.com.
Be good, people.