Paul Gerke (00:02.078)
Hey everybody, time must fly when we're having fun because it's already time for a fresh edition of This Week in Cleantech, your favorite 15-minute-ish roundup with the biggest stories in climate and clean energy every week. Today is Friday, March 6th, 2026.
We've got a returning guest in the lobby—Evan Halper from the Washington Post will be joining us shortly. Always great to have a familiar face on the program.
If you don't know mine by now, I'm Factor This content director Paul Gerke, joined as always by cleantech commentator—and the real brains behind this show, I must admit—Mike Casey of Tigercomm. Brother, how are we?
Mike Casey (00:34.061)
Good, friend. Well, let me just say we have listeners and viewers around the world, but I am an American. So I want to say I'm saddened by the outbreak of violence in the Middle East.
This is not a time and this is not a show to pontificate on a topic that I certainly have no expertise in. But I just want to say that I mourn the six known American war dead, as well as the innocent lives that have been lost so far. And I hope this conflict ends quickly. Paul.
Paul Gerke (01:04.264)
Well said, brother. If you're out there in that part of the world and still finding a way to listen to us, our gratitude knows no bounds. And if you can't, I hope you find a way to stay safe and keep the loved ones that you have in your world as close as possible.
If you do have something you want to share with us or something you want to say about the show or stories you might want to hear on it, we are an open book. You can reach us at TWIC at tigercomm dot U-S. That's T-W-I-C at tigercomm with two M's dot U-S.
Anything you want to send our way, we'll take a look at. Two cents to spare, we'll put it in the piggy bank. Mike, we’ve got five stories to get to this week. Let’s start with the first one as always. What are we talking about?
Mike Casey (04:10.005)
It is by David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times: Don’t Look Now, but the Green Transition Is Still Happening.
Hey DWW, it’s me, Mike. Hey, do you mind if I call you that? Listen, we want you on the show. You cannot do all this great analysis and not come on here and share it with our audience, Paul Gerke. I’m just doing a shoutout to Mr. It’s cool.
Paul Gerke (04:18.911)
Come on! Come on, D-double-dub, let’s go! Get on the show, man—we’re begging for it.
Yeah, so if you haven’t read this one yet, despite the political backlash that’s ongoing and this climate emergency that we find ourselves in, cleantech is taking off all over the world, which is good business for us, brother.
Some examples: only seven gas-powered cars—seven, count them on your fingers—were sold in Norway in January. That’s it.
92% of U.S. utility-scale electricity capacity planned for this year is clean, and some regions in Pakistan are soon going to see more power come from rooftop solar than other parts of the grid during certain times of the day.
And we know Texas keeps setting solar generation records here in the U.S.
According to the IEA, between 2025 and 2030, more than 90% of all new electricity capacity worldwide is expected to be renewable.
The transition is increasingly driven by economics rather than politics—the tree-hugging and “going green” motivations people might associate with it. Cheap solar, falling battery costs, energy security concerns tied directly to the situation in Iran right now, and volatile fossil fuel prices are pushing countries toward renewables even as policy momentum slows.
We said it last year, Mike—I think the tech can survive without the subsidies, and we are seeing it in practice right now. Your thoughts on this piece?
Mike Casey (05:47.504)
Our thought is at least our tech can. I don’t know if the incumbents’ tech can, but hey, we’ll see.
All right, first—everyone should read Jack Ewing’s piece in the New York Times. I put it up on LinkedIn, but it’s called U.S. Automakers Risk Being Reduced to Niche Producers of Gas Vehicles.
It poses this simple question: why are so many people in leadership positions in this country volunteering for us to get Kodak-ed? If you’re too young to know what Kodak is, look it up on Wikipedia.
Paul Gerke (06:19.903)
School the kids about photography, Mike.
Mike Casey (06:23.063)
Yeah, exactly.
Because the ideology-over-reality crowd is governing to take us back to the 1970s, clean energy growth is moving toward emerging economies. Barely half of sub-Saharan Africa has access to electricity today, but it’s now becoming a region with significant solar growth.
The big polluters like India and China are showing signs of structural change away from fossil fuels and toward more renewables. The transition still isn’t happening fast enough, but it’s clear that renewables are supplementing rather than displacing fossil fuels. So global carbon pollution is still rising, although more slowly. Paul, story number two.
Paul Gerke (07:02.619)
Our second story is by our friend Justine Calma from The Verge, titled What Trump’s War on Iran Means for the U.S. Energy Crunch. Pending for your thoughts, Mr. Casey.
Mike Casey (07:10.959)
Yeah, Ms. Calma—she is a show alum. But after bombing Iran, U.S. gas prices have already gone up 10 cents. Liquid natural gas prices surged 45% in Asia, 30% in Europe.
It’s raised questions about what a prolonged conflict would do to energy costs, power grids, and what companies are going to do to respond.
The Strait of Hormuz, which carries about one-fifth of global petroleum and LNG, has become a key choke point, with shipping disrupted as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard threatened to fire on ships and insurers changed or canceled policies.
Higher crude oil prices could encourage more U.S. drilling, aligning with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda, but it could also mean higher gasoline prices in the short term for consumers. Paul.
Paul Gerke (08:05.299)
The math is pretty simple here, Mike. The longer this conflict goes on, the more damaging it will be to the market and the more expensive it’s going to be to buy gas pretty much anywhere in the world.
Analysts say the market would tighten after four to five weeks of conflict or so and trigger more serious discussions about ramping up production here in the United States, but also tapping into global reserves elsewhere in the world.
Natural gas and electricity prices are also expected to go up if the U.S. exports more LNG to compensate for disruptions in Middle Eastern supply, and it sounds like initial reports out of that region are very much indicative of that—that LNG moving around is going to be a serious problem, at least in the short term.
A similar pattern happened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that drove up global energy prices, as you might remember, and really increased U.S. LNG exports to Europe, switching sources to the U.S. here.
Some analysts argue that expanding renewables and nuclear power would improve long-term energy security and price stability, but I think building toward the future is not exactly what’s happening right now, and we’re going to have to deal with the present—and it might be a bumpy ride. Mike, story number three.
Mike Casey (09:09.379)
Bianca Giacobone from Latitude Media: What AES’s $33.4 Billion Take-Private Says About Energy and AI, Paul.
Paul Gerke (09:19.081)
So last week, AES announced a 20-year deal with Google to power an 850-megawatt data center in Texas with co-located renewables. And then on Monday, AES confirmed some news that had been percolating for a while about how it’s going to be acquired by a consortium led by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners and EQT.
The enterprise value of that deal is north of $33 billion—one of the largest-ever take-private deals in the utility sector.
AES said it needs significant funding to support growth beyond 2027, and without that transaction, AES warned it might need to cut dividends or issue large amounts of new equity to finance its pipeline of projects, including nearly 12 gigawatts of contracted capacity with hyperscale clients alone. Mike, your thoughts.
Mike Casey (10:02.479)
So AI and data center load growth is driving investment in M&A across the power sector. There were roughly $142 billion—with a B—in U.S. power and utility deals across 157 transactions in 2025. That’s more than the combined total for 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Private capital is increasingly targeting utilities because they offer predictable contracted returns.
But AES stands out because it’s both a regulated utility and a major power producer, so buyers get regulated rate-based cash flows plus the upside from the fast-growing “bring your own generation” market, where hyperscalers contract directly for dedicated power to bypass interconnection delays. Paul, story.
Paul Gerke (10:50.567)
Story number four by Sue Rotkottary from InsideEVs, titled Europe Is Learning an Uncomfortable Truth About Local Battery Production. School us, Mike.
Mike Casey (11:00.547)
Yeah, Europe wants to localize EV battery production, but Chinese battery makers offer way cheaper products, and Europe’s supply chain is far less mature, leading to major project cancellations—even as EV sales are rapidly growing.
For example, Porsche scaled back its in-house battery manufacturing to focus on R&D because production wasn’t, quote, “economically viable.”
Northvolt, once seen as Europe’s battery champion, filed for bankruptcy in 2024 after losses and production issues.
I think what this really is a testament to is: if you invest for the long term, you play well in the long term. That’s exactly what China has done, and it’s exactly the opposite of what’s being done here in the States.
Paul Gerke (11:47.870)
Well, you said something about being far less mature. Speaking of which—Brian, can you clip him saying “but, but, but,” and we’ll just use that again at some point completely out of context? Thank you, brother, appreciate that.
Anyway, back to the story. China leads most of the global battery supply chain, as you might know—everything from minerals all the way up to production.
It’s especially dominant in the world’s cheapest battery chemistry, and the country’s scale and overcapacity means they can sell them for pennies on the dollar.
Even when Europe manufactures locally, it still relies heavily on Chinese equipment and materials—and the same goes for battery manufacturers here in the States. They still have to find a way to get the raw components, and most of them come through China.
Policymakers are trying to respond. Last year, the EU created a battery booster with about €2 billion in interest-free loans to support local cell production. But it’s a game where they’re playing catch-up, Mike.
They’re pursuing local sourcing requirements for critical minerals similar to the U.S. IRA—it’s going to take time, and we need the stuff now.
Speaking of the right now, let’s get our guest in here, Mike—our last story of the day.
Mike Casey (12:47.841)
Evan Halper from the Washington Post, he comes back to this show with his story, Why Katie Miller and Other MAGA Influencers Suddenly Love Solar Power. Evan, welcome back. This seems like a very cool story, and I’d like you to tell our audience—what’s the bottom-line takeaway?
Evan Halper (13:06.370)
Yeah, so the bottom-line takeaway here—and also I should say I am old enough to remember Kodak, so—
Paul Gerke (13:11.551)
Shake it like a Polaroid picture, baby!
Mike Casey (13:11.945)
Hahaha.
Evan Halper (13:15.778)
Yeah.
The bottom-line takeaway here is that after tearing into solar for the last year, this administration has been doing everything it could to slow down solar and sort of give fossil fuels a leg up. They’re realizing there’s not enough energy out there.
You need solar power. Solar power combined with batteries is going to account for something close to 80% of the new energy that comes onto the grid this year.
They want to do this AI buildout, and obviously they’re realizing that inhibiting solar projects—trying to kill solar projects that are almost built—doesn’t get them where they need to get with the energy agenda that the president is pushing.
And so now you’re starting to see these MAGA influencers—I mean, Katie Miller is the most interesting one because she sort of came out of nowhere.
Pollsters, Kellyanne Conway, Tony Fabrizio, Newt Gingrich are all sort of saying, why are we not doing more with solar?
And of course, the big cheerleader for this is Elon Musk, who’s a big MAGA guy—not as affiliated with the rest of the solar industry as people like you guys—but Elon Musk wants to build 100 gigawatts of solar capacity in the U.S.
This is his big vision for powering data centers, and so it’s kind of a safe space for Republicans to get on board.
I should be clear that these influencers are getting—we don’t know about Katie Miller—but everyone in the industry assumes she’s getting paid. She wouldn’t comment on that when I reached her.
The industry’s finally figuring this out and getting crafty about who they should align with. Obviously the pollsters are getting paid. I don’t know about Newt Gingrich—he didn’t return my phone calls.
But I would also say—even though the industry has been clever in getting these people involved—these are people who would not step out of line with the MAGA party line unless they felt comfortable doing so.
And you’re starting to see a shift from the administration toward embracing solar as these influencers—some of them collecting a nice payday—align with the industry.
Paul Gerke (15:18.929)
You’re telling me that someone’s getting paid to talk about solar? Mike, that’s news to us, man. We ought to get on that gravy train. Where the hell are our checks? Geez.
Hey listen, Evan—I know Mike’s got a lot to say on this—so I’ve just got one question for you, because when I saw this, this is immediately where my head went. This felt inevitable to me.
We were starting to see it in press releases where we’re talking about capacity or power deals—16 gigawatts or whatever—and then you see things listed off by the feds and it’s like five gigawatts of geothermal, three gigawatts of nuclear, some battery storage—and you’re left with a gap in the math.
And you’re like, well, what’s that going to be? What’s that missing five gigawatts supposed to be? It’s going to be solar, isn’t it?
It almost felt like acceptance by attrition over the past few weeks—maybe months—where it’s like we’re admitting that solar is an integral part of this equation, even though we had Chris Wrong, as Mike likes to call him, up there saying we’re going to do it with coal and gas.
But here we are now where it’s like, yeah, actually, this is the way it’s going to be.
Did it feel inevitable to you in your reporting?
Evan Halper (16:45.038)
I mean, I think everyone saw this coming—except maybe the president, who just thinks solar is ugly and couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that this is actually providing a lot of energy.
These guys in the White House have this fixation on baseload power that runs 24/7, and they just didn’t understand that solar panels, paired with battery storage—like everyone who listens to your program knows—actually provide pretty steady power.
So yeah, I mean, you could also see it coming from the backlash. How many stories did the Washington Post and others run about solar projects getting canceled in red and purple states? It drove people nuts.
Governors, lawmakers, businesses—even Trump donors were saying: we need this power. What are you doing?
You want us to build data centers? You can’t wait seven years for gas turbines.
So yeah, all the data pointed to this outcome. It took them longer than expected, but they’re starting to ease up—letting permits move forward.
The thing that surprised me the most was Trump promoting a post about tech companies financing rooftop solar on millions of homes.
That would not have happened a year ago.
Mike Casey (18:45.965)
Wow. Evan, besides economics and strategy, anything else that’s changed that led to this?
Evan Halper (19:00.686)
Yeah, I mean—politics and affordability. Electricity costs are rising, and voters are reacting to that.
We’ve seen elections where energy affordability played a major role—in places like Virginia and New Jersey—and Republicans got hit.
Now midterms are coming up, and we’re seeing tech companies in the White House talking about affordability, and Trump is engaging with them.
There’s real political pressure here.
Energy subtraction is not going to be the answer.
Mike Casey (20:12.688)
I’ll note two numbers, and then we’ll go to Cleantecher of the Week.
Americans’ utility bills went up 6.7% in December alone, and in 2025 we canceled 1,891 solar and wind farms. Those are not accidentally together—they are causally related.
And I also want to note a runner-up Cleantecher of the Week: United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby—the first CEO to ban speakerphone use on flights. You don’t get to be a noise-polluting zombie blasting your phone on speaker.
For that, I give him runner-up Cleantecher of the Week.
Paul Gerke (21:03.359)
He didn’t make the world any cleaner as the CEO of an airline, but he made it slightly quieter for you, Mike Casey—and that is all you need to get love on this show.
Our actual Cleantecher of the Week: David Jankowski, CEO of Francis Energy.
If you don’t know Francis Energy, they provide ultra-fast EV charging stations, focusing on underserved and rural communities to ensure no one is left behind in the transition.
Congrats, David—our Cleantecher of the Week.
Mike Casey (21:38.190)
We want to thank Evan Halper for joining us, Brian Mendez—our wonderful producer—Clare Quirin, and Alex Peterson for gathering these stories.
Paul Gerke (21:49.661)
If you guys enjoyed the show, subscribe, leave some feedback, and share story suggestions to the email mentioned at the top.
You can read all the articles we discussed—links are in the episode description and on factorthis.com.
We’ll catch you next time. Be good, people.
Mike Casey (22:08.228)
See ya.